On the eve of my one-year wedding anniversary, I’d like to share some things I’ve learned thus far about marriage, being a husband and home repair (more on that later).

First and foremost, it has easily been one of the best years of my life, filled with a lot of laughter and good times. My life is far richer because of my wife Reagan.

One of the advantages of being married is the opportunity to experience new things from your partner. My wife has exposed me to all sorts of new things, but in particular travel, art and music. (On the flipside, I’m not sure that my love of the Maryland Terrapins basketball team ever took root.)

In the three years we’ve been together, we’ve been to Bali, Portugal and Senegal — mostly on Reagan’s prompting.

As a lover of alternative music, she’s introduced me to bands I’d never even heard of (much less listened to), like We Are Scientists, Electic Six and The Editors. Because Reagan loves to paint and owns piles of art books, I’m now familiar with artists like Richard Diebenkorn and Egon Schiele.

Besides expanding my horizons, I’ve learned the value of letting small disagreements go. While ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ is a tired cliche, in marriage it’s a truth.

In the first several months of marriage, I was often frustrated over minor differences in our behavior, like cleanliness or promptness. Now, I’m much better at letting those things go. I’ve learned (as I believe she has) to look at the big picture; you love this person for who she is and how you feel when you’re with her, not so much for what she does.

I’ve also learned to be more accepting. I don’t sleep late on weekends or on vacation, but my wife does. She needs more sleep than I do. That’s just a fact. I wish that wasn’t the case and we could do more together in the mornings, but I’ve come to understand, and not resist, our difference.

I’ve learned what a big adjustment it is to share my living space with someone. I lived most of my adult life by myself, so I had no one to answer to when, say, I left the dishes in the sink for a day or two. That’s all changed now.

Being married means that you are routinely forced to think about your actions because they impact your spouse. Because of that I’m probably a more considerate person today than I was a year ago.

I’ve also learned how inept and largely uninterested I am in anything involving home repair. I can change a lightbulb and hammer a nail, but that’s about it. While I probably knew that about myself for many years, it’s now highlighted regularly because I have an audience (who sometimes likes to remind me of my ineptitude regarding all things repair).

But what I’ve mostly learned this past year is how thrilling it is to share my life with someone, that there’s no greater gift than to love and be loved by the person you’re most crazy about. And for that I feel very, very fortunate.