My boyfriend and I have been together for over eight years now, and I absolutely love him and our life together. I feel that our relationship is much different than other people’s relationships nowadays, and I feel very lucky to have him in my life.

My boyfriend and I honestly don’t have a lot of shared interests. For example, he loves working on cars and playing video games, when neither of those things interest me. I like to shop, be outdoors and go places, but he likes to stay home. Although we don’t have many hobbies that we both enjoy, we have both agree on what we want our future to look like.

We know that the home we’re in now is not forever home; we’ve debated on selling this house vs. renting it out once we’re ready to move to the next home. We know what we want in the next house and know what we will and won’t settle for. We know where we went to live and how much we’re willing to spend.

My boyfriend and I also know that we do not want kids until after we’re married. We will be getting married likely in 2021 or 2022, we’re not engaged yet, so depending on when we get engaged will determine what year we get married. We’d like to get married on our anniversary date of October 2nd, and we both would not like to be engaged for much longer than a year (if even that long). We want two children, three maximum.

Today we were at a birthday party for our friends’ one-year-old, and it made me think about how fun it will be when him and I are parents. I started picturing us planning the party and being there with our little baby, and then my mind wandered into thinking about Christmas with our future kids. It got me to thinking that maybe parenting together will be “our thing.” If parenting is looked at as a fun hobby, I feel like that can only have a positive outcome!

Luckily we also both agree on how we will be raising our children. We share the same views on electronics for children and the important of them being outside and socializing with others. We both agree on what’s too far for discipline and what is appropriate. We know we want to raise strong, independent children and we will love them unconditionally and teach them to love themselves. Obviously parenting will not be easy and there’s so such thing as a perfect parent, but if we enjoy raising our children together I feel that can only benefit the whole family.

I’m not ready for children yet, and neither is he. We also agree that 28 is the minimum age that I’d like to be to have a baby. We have a lot to do before we can bring a child into this world; not to mention I’d like to do a bit more traveling before I have to do so with a child with me. For now I will be focusing on myself and practicing different forms of self-care, which I hope will benefit my future.

For right now, him and I are just going to do our own things, and we will both be cheering each other on. I love that we both love and care about each other so much, and even though we have different interests/hobbies we still support each other’s goals and help each other whenever we can. The other thing is we always make sure to let the other person know that they’re appreciated, every single day. Communication and appreciation are very important in any relationship. ♡