Sample Vows for Renewing Your Wedding Vows After Making it Through Stressful Times

Stress comes in many forms – finances, health, work, children, families, nature, and so on. For each of the forms, there are a wide variety of words you might want to say to your spouse. While many couples choose to write their own vows, so they reflect their personal experience, you may find starting from scratch a bit daunting. Below are sample vows that you can use to get your creative juices flowing, or you can personalize them and use them word for word, or you can select the lines that you like and create an original vow for your ceremony. To make them yours, simply replace the X with the number of years you’ve been married, replace the (name) with your spouse’s name and select from either of the two words if you encounter a pair separated with a “/.”

Sample Vows – After Stressful Times

I believe in this marriage more strongly than ever.
Together we have taken on the world, with all of its ups and downs, and made it through with our love all the stronger.
(Name), it is with joy born of experience and trust that I commit myself once again to be your (husband/wife)

Sample Vows – After Stressful Times

Husband: Together we have taken on the world, with all of its ups and downs, and made it through with our love all the stronger.
Wife: Today, as we stand here together in front of our family and friends, I renew my promises to you.
Husband: And I to you.
Wife: I promise to share with you my time and my attention and to bring joy, strength, and imagination to our marriage.
Husband: I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests, desires, and needs are no less important than my own.
Wife: I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give.
Husband: I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my soul into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
Wife: I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.
Husband: I promise to love you no matter what the world has in store for us.
Wife: I promise to love you with all that I am and all that I will be.
Husband: I am yours completely and forever.
Wife: And I am yours completely and forever.

Sample Vow – After Making it Through Good and Bad Times

Husband: We promised to love each other for richer and for poorer– and both have come to pass. We’ve known plentiful times and lean times; we have loved through both.
Wife: We promised to love each other in sickness and in health — and both have come to pass. We’ve been strong, and we’ve been weak. We’ve each had our turn to take care of the other. We have given and received comfort.
Husband: We promised to love each other for better and for worse, and those too have come to pass.
Wife: Our love has made the good times better and the bad times bearable.
Husband: X years ago, we promised to spend the rest of our lives together. We were filled with hopes and dreams. Today I thank you for making those hopes and dreams come true.
Wife: Thank you for the years filled with joy, laughter, hugs, and unconditional, supportive love.
Husband: We promised to love each other, and it has come to pass and continues on.
Wife: Today, I promise these things again and to love you even more.
Husband: Today, I promise these things again and to love you even more.

Sample Vow – After Facing Temptation

On our wedding day, I made a choice. It was the most important choice of my life, and I made it only after a great deal of consideration. On that day, I chose you to be my husband/wife. I thought then that such a decision, once made, as final and irrevocable. Now I know that the selection of a life partner is not a one-time decision but an on-going process. Many times in the years since then, I have chosen you again. Faced with changes and alternatives, I have become keenly aware that a marriage lasts only so long as both partners desire each other above all others. As our lives have been affected by the ebb and flow of other lives and events, there have been many times when I could have chosen to go in a different direction. But over and over I chose you. The reason is simple: you above all others arouse in me feelings of tenderness, joy and caring. I choose you not because I feel obligated and not because a legal document says that I am your wife/husband but because, in my heart of hearts, I still want to be by your side more than I want to be anywhere else.

Sample Vow – After an Infidelity

On our wedding day, I pledged many things to you, including my faithfulness. With great sorrow and regret, I acknowledge that I broke that vow, but I realize now the enormity of my mistake. Others come and go, but you are the constant in my life whom I will always love. I believe in this marriage more than ever, and I reaffirm my love and commitment to you.

Sample Vows – After Stressful Times

On our wedding day, I pledged to love you in sickness and in health, and for better or worse. The past year has tested those vows, but our enduring love for one another has prevailed. I come here today to make a fresh start, to renew our vows of love, honor, and fidelity, and to reaffirm my love for you. Once again, I promise to love you, honor you and keep you, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.

Sample Vows – After Stressful Times

X years ago, I promised to love you for as long as we both should live. I never imagined that I would face losing you so soon, or the depths of despair I would feel at that prospect. Today, we have made it through the darkness, and I am so honored that I get to continue life’s journey by your side. Once again, I promise to love you, honor you and keep you, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.