TJ, I'm so sorry I'm just now responding to your comment on this post. Thank you for the anniversary wishes! I agree that a certain strength builds with each hill you've climbed together. I guess my point is that it depends, somewhat, on *how* you climb those hills, not just that you have climbed them. In other words, one couple can climb 50 hills, with one of them stomping off ahead of the other person, who is feeling resentful as they try to catch up; another couple might have only climbed 10, but with more care and respect. The strength of a relationship can't be measured ONLY by the distance traversed, the number of years spent, or the grade of the hills climbed. 

Modern Gal, it's interesting that you bring up the board game analogy. Do you ever have those moments, as a writer, when you find yourself writing something that you didn't expect to? Sometimes it even feels like you didn't actually THINK of it, the idea just started flowing through your fingers, like it bypassed your brain all together? The board game analogy felt like that, so I just went with it. I'm glad it spoke to you—I love how that happens, even to people whose experiences seem, on the surface, so different from my own. Thanks for sharing a bit of your own struggle here, too.