Shit My Husband Says: “I’m So Glad You’ve Changed.”
“I’m so glad you’ve changed,” my husband said to me one afternoon. I nearly choked on my food, sputtering, “Wh…What?”
When Krisztian and I first starting dating, I was very into loft apartments, exposed brick, concrete floors, and city living. So, it turns out, this “change” he spoke of was really about the HGTV episode we were watching, with a couple purchasing a home with lots of land a chicken coop. The chicken coop was cute! I wanted one. Afterwards, we joked about how dramatically our styles have changed in the seven years we’ve been together.
But the more I thought about it, that phrase really stuck out in my mind.
“I’m so glad you’ve changed.”
While we both have absolutely changed our interior design styles and home aspirations (settling on a shared love of contemporary decor with a good bit of land!) — we’ve both changed soooo much more than that. We’ve grown together in the past seven years in some pretty incredible ways! At one point, Krisztian wasn’t sure he even wanted dogs — so yeah, obviously some things are pretty different. We both went through college in Atlanta at that point, too - me at Georgia State University for my BFA, and Krisz at Georgia Tech studying Chemical Engineering. I worked at a Jewish Deli part time, and eventually roped Krisztian into joining me there. During summer breaks, I’d often stay in Atlanta to wait tables and go to summer school while he stayed with his family in Miami and worked with his dad… except one summer that I lived there too (weeks after we’d started dating!). I was introduced to Hungarian food for the first time and man, talk about change! I’d grown up with a severe aversion to heavy cream, sour cream, and cheese in pretty much any form (weird, I know). But when you’re a guest in someone else’s home, you just say “yes, please” when they offer you delicious homemade Eastern European food that consists of those three ingredients in various different ways. A few years ago, we moved across the country to a state where we knew almost no one, and only one of us had a job waiting on the other side. We had no apartment lined up, our car broke down 2.5 days in to a 5 day drive, and we nearly got our Mini Cooper stuck on a dirt road getting to our Arizona AirBnb. As you may have guessed about a man with a Chemical Engineering degree, logic and predictability are really appealing. I have no clue how I convinced him to join me in this adventure, but I’m so glad he said yes. Here are a few photos of the man I love so much! The day he proposed, a pit-stop on our cross country adventure in New Mexico, the day we adopted our sweet girl Lucy, a shot of him and Lucy cuddling in a tent in Lake Tahoe, a few shots in our Jeep on an adventure to Big Bear with Lucy and our newest furry friend, Pepper, and of course - the day we eloped in Joshua Tree.
The changes happen little by little, day by day. It’d be impossible to list each one, but what I’m really getting at is this: it’s important to be open to change. It’s important to be open to the evolution of your partner. Loving someone for who they are right now is equally important as loving them through the changes they experience, and constantly finding new ways to support + love each other. Don’t get me wrong - it isn’t always been easy! There are seasons in our lives where roles switch and you’re taking on tasks you’re not as good at as your partner may be. But together you strive to find an equilibrium, if not a balance — it truly is give and take. But I genuinely try to keep in mind something I heard on Dax Shephard’s podcast once that he said about Kristen:
always assume the best in each other.
So, yes - one day I’d like a house kind of like the one I grew up on. Not a huge home, but a decent sized plot of land so that I can have a big yard for a few dogs, a big garden in the back for fresh fruits and vegetables, and a chicken coop (we had bunnies growing up, not the same). But I’ve changed in a million other ways too, and so has he, and I’m grateful for every step of the way.
