Marriage can be difficult, and anyone who has been in a committed relationship knows that to be true. When one couple got married, they received a gift that was meant to be opened during their “first disagreement,” and they unintentionally vowed to never have to open it. However, 9 years later, the couple made the decision to open it up, never expecting the hidden secret within the simple gift.

Brandon and Kathy Gunn (Source: Facebook)

When Brandon and Kathy Gunn said their vows, they knew they were going to have to work together to make their marriage last. However, they had no idea that one simple wedding gift would hold a hidden secret that they wouldn’t learn until many years after getting married.

Unbeknownst to them at the time, their Great Aunt Alison had given them the perfect gift for newlyweds — a box with a card that read, “Do not open until your 1st disagreement.” It would be 9 years before the day came that they decided to open the mystery gift.

“Now, there had obviously been plenty of disagreements, arguments, and slammed doors throughout our 9 years,” Kathy explained, according to Love What Matters. 

“When you first get married, there are growing pains: learning how to live with someone else, finding out their crazy quirks,” Gunn explained. “The issues change depending on how long you’ve been married and what’s gong on in your life … first you fight about about picking up clothes off the floor, then later you fight about not getting sleep because of colicky babies. There were even a couple of instances where we both considered giving up … but we never opened the box.”

She continued, “Problems evolve over time. When we would think about the box, we would keep that in mind. We’d say, ‘We think this is a mountain, but maybe it’s a molehill. Maybe we don’t need it yet. It really forced us, every time we had a disagreement, to think about the bigger picture and ask, 'Is it really that big of a deal?'"

“All along, we assumed that the contents of that box held the key to saving a marriage – an age-old trick – unbeknownst to us rookies,” Kathy explained. 

“For 9 years (and three moves) that box sat high on a shelf in various closets gathering dust, yet it somehow taught us about tolerance, understanding, compromise, and patience. Our marriage strengthened as we became best friends, partners, and teammates,” she said. “Today, we decided to open that box because I finally had a realization. I realized that the tools for creating and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage were never within that box – they were within us.”

They decided to open it ... and burst out laughing when they saw what was inside.

The disagreement box gift (Source: Love What Matters)

There was an envelope for the bride and groom, containing money and directions for each. But over those nine years, the box had come to mean much more: its very existence helped the Gunns keep their perspective and work through issues that could have otherwise broken them. "

Gunn felt compelled to write about the box and published a post about it to the Love What Matters Facebook page. "It was kind of a way to thank aunt Alison for helping us out the last nine years," she explained

She also wanted to share the secret she learned from the gift.

The post went viral, and Aunt Alison actually heard about it through friends before Gunn got a chance to send it. "She was flabbergasted!" said Gunn. "And tickled. She thinks that it’s the funniest and the cutest thing, because she can’t believe we even hung onto it for that long!"

Now, who could have guessed that a disagreement box would turn out to be the best gift to give to a young couple? It just goes to prove that with a little hard work and a lot of love, two people will undoubtedly “figure it out” and be a blessed family because of it. Perhaps more newlyweds should get a similar gift on their big day.