In xoNecole's Our First Year series, we take a more in-depth look at love and relationships between real-life couples, married and unmarried with an emphasis on what their first year in love was like. These couples allow us to journey through their love stories with them – the ups, the downs, the triumphs, and the tribulations of what it takes to make their love work.
The first thing that stood out to him when he met her was how different she was from any woman who came before her.
When Cameron, 24, met Aisha, 26, it was over six years ago at a mutual friend's BBQ. Among the sweet smell of hickory, the earthy aroma of charcoal, and too-sweet tea, their eyes met and so did their vibes. It was humble beginnings for the Creative Label co-founder and the pro-baller. Cam would love his wife for her creativity, passion, ambition, and most of all, her ability to challenge him "to be better and do better," he said. "And hold me accountable."
For AIsha, she would love in her husband the very thing that took her breath away from the jump: his kindness.
@cam_marshall
One look at Aisha's Instagram and you learn exactly how they fit. Photos of her in her cap and gown being supported by her man as she finishes her degree, him being supported by her while donning his own uniform for the Sasatchewan Rough Riders. It's not only a match made in heaven, but a match made in compromise.
After five years together, the couple got married in the spring, March 5, 2017 to be exact, during Aisha's spring break in her third year in law school. "The most memorable moment to me was when I walked down the aisle and Cam looked at me and siad, 'Wow,'" Aisha recalled. "He has this weird way of making me feel like I'm the only girl in the world."
@aisha
A year later, and the Marshalls are giving us some insight into their first year of marriage in our latest installment of Our First Year. This is their journey.
Dating With Purpose
Cam Marshall: When I was looking to date, I was only looking to date someone that had qualities that I could see in a wife. When I met her, she was just different—in a good way—from everyone I met. I felt a strong and quick connection with her. After I knew her heart, it was obvious at that point. Nothing sudden, it was over time. When I knew her heart, I knew that's what I want.
Aisha Marshall: This is so cheesy, but I felt like I knew he was the one when we met. Seriously. You always hear that, but I felt it. Mostly because I knew I was dating a Godly man. And what came with that was someone who also put God first, valued our relationship, and had no interest in playing games. All that coupled together felt like if we were compatible, it would really lead to something special.
The One
Cam: I knew I wanted to marry her early on. I decided to propose when I did, because I wanted to marry her for 3 ½ years, and I knew it was time. I felt like we were at a point in our relationship where we had gone through a lot and I felt like I had a good grasp on how we could handle things together when things were easy and going well and when things were really horrible—in each one of our lives, respectively. I felt like that was something I needed to push me [and feel] that it's time to do this.
Aisha: For me, when we first started long distance was when I knew—which was a little less than one year into our relationship. (laughs) We went the traditional route when it came to living together and being abstinent. So when our school and careers took us to separate parts of the country, I knew that I didn't want to live my life apart from him anymore. I knew he was it for me.
"I knew I didn't want to live my life apart from him anymore. I knew he was it for me."
Deepest Fears
Cam: I didn't have fears going into marriage, which is probably strange and naive to say. My parents have been married for 30 years. Not making it work is never an option for me. Knowing things get tough, I knew we'd make it work and figure it out. I wasn't scared about anything.
Aisha: My biggest fear is divorce. I came from a single parent household, so I experienced first-hand how that can affect a childhood. I absolutely didn't want that for my future. One thing we've learned throughout this year is that, oftentimes, couples bring their experiences—bad and good—from their family into their relationship. Making a conscious effort to recognize those feelings and shut them down if they're not helping your marriage is key.
Building Together
Cam: In the beginning, we didn't overcome friction as a team very well. We had slightly different expectations post-marriage [that] made things difficult sometimes when we're trying to handle things. She thought, "This is my husband, this is how he should act." And I thought, "Why should things change from when we're dating?" That didn't allow us to act really well as a team. I did things and acted alone often times without involving her when I should have or when she expected me to.
Aisha: Nine months in, and I think we're finally starting to get the team player gig down, for the most part. Working as a team on hard, controversial topics is freaking hard. We both have the best intentions for our marriage, don't get me wrong. We just both have different ways of going about them.
Baggage Reclaim
Cam: Some bad behaviors for me was not being open. I'm naturally closed off as a person. That's not the bad part. What's bad is that I wasn't open with Aisha with the things that involve her. How did I navigate through it? Repeated arguing, until I finally realized that this was important. I had to stop trying to fight it and realize that this is important for her. When I was more open, things were a lot smoother than when I tried to control them by myself. Being open with her didn't mean that I never got my way anymore. It was just more discussions than me just unilaterally making a decision.
Aisha: One bad behavior for me was ending a argument or discussion when I felt like I didn't want to talk about it anymore. That's super wrong (laughs). I would deny Cameron a conversation basically when it got too heated. I learned that even if I'm frustrated, sitting through and talking things out brings more resolve than leaving or checking out of the conversation.
Lessons In Love
Cam: [The most important lesson I've learned is] that we can get through anything. I feel like when you have someone who you really know has your back 100%, little stuff—or big stuff even—doesn't bother you as much. So, even if I'm not confident in myself, I'm confident in her, so that makes things easier to go through. Having your best friend in your corner, you feel like you can do anything.
"Even if I'm not confident in myself, I'm confident in her, so that makes things easier to go through."
Aisha: He comes first, after God. He is the most important thing in my life. And by consciously serving and not expecting, and vice versa, we will produce a more fulfilling marriage.
Mentors In Marriage
Cam: We both went through different phases of people. My father early on, to my two friends, who are married. These people were my go-to for marriage advice because they each had different levels of experience and they were both great representations of what God intended marriage to be. I could trust them because they were men of God who were practicing God in His word.
Aisha: Typically, it's my best friend or two other close friends who are a bit older and married. It's hard because I'm the only one in my friend group who is married. So I want to make sure I'm getting the right advice. But the other two women are women of God. God is at the center of their relationship and they've been married for over 4 years. The experience aspect was one that was important for me to get.
God First
Cam: A common goal would be to keep God first in our relationship and to push each other to accomplish our own individual goals. My individual goal is to great. The standard is great. It doesn't stop with athletics. I want to be a great husband, provider, leader. That's the standard. I want to be able to maintain that great standard throughout life and my marriage.
Aisha: Our marriage is rooted in faith. After my relationship with God, it's like a cycle. We both push each other to pursue each individual goal, to pursue a better relationship with God, and to pursue a better relationship with one another. Repeat.
For more Aisha & Cam, follow them on Instagram @aisha and @cam_marshall.
All images were captured by Kenzie Hart. Follow her on Instagram @hartfilms_.
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Thing is, with the divorce rate still being higher than it ever should be (for the record, a husband is not a boyfriend, and a wife is not a girlfriend; a marriage is serious business, y’all) and acting married being praised (or at least acknowledged) more than actually being married seems to be — folks who 1) are married and are looking for some hacks that will help with relational longevity or 2) want to be married someday and want insight on how to make their future marriage last are constantly seeking truly beneficial material.
Can you Google articles with random bullet points? Sure. And I’m not discouraging it. Every little bit of wisdom that you can pull, I fully support. However, the reason why I like to do articles like this one from time to time is there is something to be said from hearing real talk from multiple sources on the same topic who have some solid wisdom and knowledge on a particular topic.
Today? 11 married couples who were willing to talk about how they’ve been able to make it to several wedding anniversaries with a smile on their face and no regrets for choosing who they chose. Let’s all sit at their feet for just a moment.
*Middle names are always used in my content that’s like this so that people can speak freely*
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1. Kyle and Adrienne. Married 12 Years.
Kyle: “Some of your readers aren’t going to want to hear this but it’s worked for my marriage: people need to lower their expectations sometimes; I mean, men and women. We go into marriage with stuff that movies told us, social media told us, friends who are always single told us about what we should expect from someone, and then want to fault the person when they’re not what we made up in our head. Everyone should have standards but if you’re expecting your spouse to be some living version of a fairy tale character, you’re going to be disappointed almost every day of your life. Drop those expectations some and watch your relationship be a lot less stressful.”
Adrienne: “Talk to people who respect your man about your marriage. I’ve never believed that you shouldn’t ever go to anyone when you need some support. Even the Bible says that there is safety in wise counsel [Proverbs 11:4]. Too many women talk to women who don’t respect men, in general, let alone their husbands, and so that’s where things go left. Sometimes, you need an ‘outside in’ perspective. But if that woman is always taking shots at men, doesn’t respect marriage, or isn’t someone who holds your man in high regard, don’t ask her for advice. Really, you should ask yourself why you’re friends with her at all.”
Shellie here: I’m big on engaged and married couples having a “village” of sorts for their relationship, too. Check out “Why Every Engaged Couple Needs A 'Marriage Registry'” to get a good idea of what I mean.
2. Levi and Paulette. Married for 15 Years.
Levi: “Some of you have probably heard of the 7-7-7 rule. It’s where couples go on a date every seven days, have a weekend getaway every seven weeks, and go on a romantic trip of some sort every seven months. My wife and I do the 2-2-2 rule instead because sometimes our schedule and budget make ‘7’ difficult. It has gotten easier since Shellie told us about the sex jar. Bottom line, if you’re waiting for time to just open up to be with your spouse, that ain’t gonna happen. Schedule intimacy, including sex. Prioritizing it is better than saying you’re gonna be spontaneous and…never are.”
Paulette: “Initiate sex, dammit. When Shellie told us that men initiate sex most of the time, and then I thought about how often I used to push my husband away whenever he did it — I never really thought about how that made him feel until I put myself in his shoes. We’ve got to stop having all of this understanding for why women cheat when it comes to them not feeling desired or not getting attention when we’re the same way to our husbands. Your marriage isn’t ‘Young and the Restless’, where you’re just supposed to wait for your man to make the move. If you want to feel wanted, do the same thing for him.”
Shellie here: What’s a sex jar, you ask? You can read more about it via “5 Reasons Why Every Married Couple Needs A Sex Jar.”
3. Matthew and Gaia. Married for 17 Years.
Matthew: “Reenact some of your favorite times together. My wife and I do that semi-often. We’ll go back to where we had our first date, or we’ll go back to the hotel where we had some of the best sex before. Bringing back memories of when you felt the best together can give you the motivation to stay together to create some new memories to ‘play out’ later on.”
Gaia: “If you want to ‘mom your husband,’ you need to have kids — or at least get a dog! I didn’t realize how bossy I was until I got married. It’s because I saw my mom be that way with my dad. In my eyes, I thought that’s what love looked like until I watched how my in-laws were. They don’t try to change each other, and they definitely don’t make any demands. They’re very polite. I think a lot of married people are rude to their partner. Don’t be that.”
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4. Joseph and Carletta. Married for 10 Years.
Joseph: “Go to therapy for your childhood. I’m dead serious. No one is going to show you yourself like your wife will, and I realized that a lot of my hang-ups came from unhealed childhood stuff. It’s hard to be an adult in your marriage when you’re still emotionally a kid in a lot of ways. If you’re at the point where you think therapy is needed, go alone and deal with your childhood first. It did miracles for me and mine.”
"No one is going to show you yourself like your wife will, and I realized that a lot of my hang-ups came from unhealed childhood stuff. It’s hard to be an adult in your marriage when you’re still emotionally a kid in a lot of ways."
Carletta: “Meditate together once a day. Even if it’s just for 5-10 minutes, you need to carve out a moment to be mindful, focus on each other, and slow the world down. [Joseph and I] have been doing it for a couple of years now; it’s totally changed the way we communicate. Meditation reminds us to put each other first; that if we’re focused on each other, we can take on…whatever.”
5. Zeke and Rachelle. Married for 12 Years.
Zeke: “An argument is not a fight and a debate is not an argument. Learn that and you’re home-free. That’s all I got.”
Rachelle: “That advice that you just got? That sums up what it’s like to live with my husband. He’s very cut-and-dry, direct, and not wordy. That used to bug the hell out of me until I realized how wordy I was and then accepted that I wouldn’t want ‘two of me’ in the house [LOL]. He’s right. You can have a difference of opinion, and it be a debate. You can not find a middle ground on something and it turns into an argument. Neither of those is a red flag. It just comes with being with someone who is as much of an individual as you are.”
6. Taurus and Madison. Married for 22 Years.
Taurus: “Be prepared for your partner to change — not a couple of times, quite a bit. And when they change, that alters the relationship because now it’s not the person you stood with on your wedding day; it’s someone else. People get divorced so much because they are inflexible; they expect their spouse to never switch up and that’s just not how life is. If you’re rigid, controlling, or don’t know how to adjust, you don’t need to marry anybody. You’re gonna be miserable, and so will they.”
Madison: “Pray before sex. Before my husband and I got married, we had quite a bit of sexual history that caused us to do some comparing, and that led to resentment. In marriage, we had to adjust to how it’s more than just what we’re getting from another person. Married sex comes with so much more spirituality and responsibility. Prayer before sex reminds us to see it from a spiritual lens — and that makes the experience more intense and sacred. It might sound weird at first. Just try it. I don’t think you’ll regret it at all.”
"Married sex comes with so much more spirituality and responsibility. Prayer before sex reminds us to see it from a spiritual lens — and that makes the experience more intense and sacred."
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7. Karl and LaTasha. Married for 9 Years.
Karl: “Check in with your partner twice a day. In the morning before leaving the house and at night before going to sleep. If you work outside of the home, a lot can happen during the course of one day, so you shouldn’t assume that the person you left in the morning is who you are coming home to. I don’t mean sharing each other’s schedules or to-do lists. I mean, asking your spouse, ‘How are you doing? How are you really doing?’. It’s a smart way to take note of their mood and needs so that you are never blindsided.”
LaTasha: “Give each other some privacy. I have never been the kind of woman to go through a man’s phone, and I won’t start. If you think that you have to be a detective in your relationship, why are you in it in the first place? I know that Karl would give me codes and passwords if I wanted them because we’ve talked about it all before. Knowing that he would is enough for me. Marriage is an institution, but damn, it shouldn’t feel like jail.”
8. Thomas and Wynter. Married for 15 Years.
Thomas: “Ask your partner what their sexual needs are. Never assume that they haven’t changed because if we all agree that we are constantly growing and evolving as people, why would sex be exempt? Don’t personalize what they say about it either. All of us have sexual fantasies and interests that we keep to ourselves because we don’t know what our partner will think or ‘cause we think that they will create stories in their head about what made us think that way. I’ve learned that intimacy is feeling okay with sharing the deep stuff. The more comfortable a man, especially, is with doing that, the better the sex will be for everyone because talking about stuff like that is like taking down some walls.”
Wynter: “It’s okay to take one vacation a year with your girls and one by yourself. Just don’t go with people who don’t have the same standards as you, and as far as your solo venture, it doesn’t need to be longer than a long weekend. One thing that they don’t tell you about marriage is how there are times when you will feel like it is monotonous because of the routine of everything. A girls’ trip reminds you to get back to you outside of being someone’s wife or mom, and the trip alone is when you can sit around and do whatever you have to negotiate most of them. And yes, your man should be given the same courtesy.”
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9. Allen and Yvette. Married for 11 Years.
Allen: “STOP. BRINGING. UP. OLD. SH-T. SH-T. Nothing creates walls in a marriage more than you telling someone that you forgave them, and then the minute something else happens, here you go with the rap sheet of wrongs. Forgiving someone means that you are pardoning them, and that’s not what you’re doing if you’re constantly holding stuff over their head. One thing that marriage will show you is how bad of a forgiver you are. Most people suck at it, if we’re gonna be real about it.”
Yvette: “I already know that some women are going to assume that my man must’ve done something to say all of that (LOL). He’s a much better forgiver than I am, believe it or not. The real plot twist is, what gets on his nerves more than anything, is when I bring up stuff that he’s forgiven me for. Allen is the kind of man [who] hates to live in the past. I’ve grown a lot because of that. I think my advice would be to stay focused on solutions and tomorrow instead of problems and yesterday.”
Allen: “Sh- t, that’s bars, babe!”
Shellie here: INDEED.
10. Brennton and Danyelle. Married for 16 Years.
Brennton: “Why anyone who is trash at forgiving would get married is beyond me. It’s delusional to the nth degree to think that you are worthy of forgiveness and others aren’t — or that what you do isn’t ‘as bad,’ and that’s why you deserve forgiveness and others don’t. My wife and I have a lot of time under our belts. I’m here to tell you that there will be something, daily, that you will need to forgive your partner for on some level. If you can’t see yourself being open to that, marriage simply isn’t for you.”
Danyelle: “I don’t know who taught so many of us that being passive-aggressive will get us what we want, but it’s a damn lie. If something is wrong, stop saying ‘nothing’ when your man asks you what’s up because, if you’ve got a man like mine, he’s gonna say ‘Okay’ and go on about his day. Brennton often says that my refusing to speak isn’t his responsibility, it’s mine. That used to piss me off because, deep down, I knew that he was right. Oh, and chill on the grudge-holding too. With guys, that’s not going to get you anywhere either.”
11. Christopher and Yvonne. Married for 26 Years.
Christopher: “Have more loyalty for your spouse than you do your closest friend. Too many people don’t think like that. If you’ve got a friend since college, you’ve been through some things and you’ve learned to forgive and move past it. If you can’t see your wife or husband in this way, why did you get married? You should never have more grace for someone who you didn’t take vows with; that’s ludicrous. Before anyone else, I’m going to prioritize reconciling with my wife. It’s because I value her more than anyone. That’s what marriage is.”
"Before anyone else, I'm going to prioritize reconciling with my wife. It's because I value her more than anyone. That's what marriage is."
Yvonne: “Even if you’re not about ‘traditional gender roles,’ discuss what the expectations are for the home. People don’t divorce over cheating as much as getting sick of beard clippings in the bathroom sink or cars that look like pocketbooks. When you sign up for marriage, you are doing daily life with another person. Articulate your expectations. Listen to theirs. Be flexible until you both can make it work. Do that, and you’ll look up, and it’s been 20 years already.”
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Gems. Pure gems, y’all.
You know, popular consultant Barbara De Angelis once said, “Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.” And love? Love is a choice.
And so, whether you’re married, engaged, or simply desire marriage in the future, hopefully, these tips will help you to choose how you love your spouse (or future spouse)…better.
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