Look For the Good 💍

...and 8 other things I've learned this year in 22 years of marriage

A Village Wedding, by Jan Steen (1653) #

We were 24 and 25 when Kyle and I married twenty-two years ago this weekend, and we knew we didn’t know it all. Even though we felt downright middle-aged compared to our peers marrying four years younger than us, we knew we were still young and staring at the possibility of six-plus decades together ahead of us. But what we did think was that we knew each other.

After all, we’d met out on the mission field in Kosovo, where the pressure cooker of cross-cultural living intensifies relationships and personalities, forcing those in the pot to inevitably cling to the things and people around you that feel at home. We quickly became best friends in that wild world of post-Milosevic war-torn Balkan living as expats, finding out in mere months that we were compatible for spending the rest of our lives together and creating a family.

We also spent part of our five-month engagement (which we both felt was two months too long) traveling around the world in prayer and research about where we’d settle longer-term for work and family-raising, and those inevitable virtues and vices that reveal themselves during extended travel made their way to the forefront, too.

We met at the altar that cool November afternoon sure that we knew each other.

Reader, we barely knew each other.

I can say this with confidence after twenty-two years of marriage. And I hope I can say something similar when I write you on our forty-fourth anniversary — that at twenty-two years we were just getting started.

Here are a few things I've learned — and re-learned — this past year about living the day-to-day, ordinary quotidian life in the holy, harrowing sacrament of marriage.

1. Take care of yourself.

No one else can do that for you, even your beloved betrothed. As comforting as it might be to think that the partnership of marriage includes your spouse somehow making you healthy and whole while you neglect yourself, it just doesn't work that way. (However, read this in tandem with my other thoughts below, because none of this is in a vacuum.)

Yes, love and care for each other — of course. Of course. You said you would in the vows you promised. But in doing so, care for yourself spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, and all the other -lys that matter. You have to, actually. That's how adulthood works. That's how marriage flourishes.

2. It's still 100/100.

I said this last year, and it remains true: marriage isn't 50/50, it's 100/100. Bring your full self, your total willingness to dedicate yourself fully to your marriage and family. Hopefully your spouse will, too, but all the same — give 100% to your marriage even if your partner doesn’t (yet). Dying to yourself is part of the gig, and the surprising thing is finding life, true life-giving joy, on the other side of it.

(This is in tandem with number one; they're not at odds with each other.)

3. Go on frequent dates.

And by “dates,” I mean long walks around the neighborhood, quick coffee mornings at your local cafe, or nearby drives with your sleeping newborn in the back seat. Dinners out at restaurants occasionally too, yes, but have you seen those prices lately? Gracious. Don't let your budget justify not spending focused time together.

My favorite current dates are our Saturday mornings at the nearby coffee shop, where we claim the same outdoor table in the little nook off to the side and order, for under twenty bucks, the same dadgum thing every week. We bring a bag of dog treats and toss them to Ginny who believes she’s at Disneyland with all the three-year-old fans coming up to pet her, and Kyle and I chat about whatever’s on our mind. We get into health, theology, politics, the kids (of course), home renovations, stuff we’re reading, that one podcast episode we can’t stop thinking about, the state of the world... whatever.

I look forward to this simple outing every single week.

4. Allocate tasks according to your skills and gifts.

I know, so far none of this is rocket science, but this year I’ve read more and more complaints from women about their burden of “emotional labor” and I just sigh. I know we’re all different so I don’t meant to paint with a broad brush here, but in general, women’s brains are typically better at multi-tasking than men’s, and this often means we’re simply better at the emotional labor that’s inevitable with adulthood.

Sure, the emotional labor of remembering family member’s birthdays, who needs to be where when on the weekends, knowing we’re low on milk while also needing to look into renewing our auto insurance, knowing the right book to read next for storytime, knowing how the kids are doing in their math classes, keeping track of potential college options for the upperclassman, and also remembering to take a meal to that family at church who just had a baby is hard work. But juggling all these things tends to be a woman’s superpower — well, at least it is in our family. I’m just better at that stuff than Kyle is, so I’m more than willing to do it. It’s part of my job as co-leader of our family.

Kyle’s great at knowing what needs fixing in the house, remembering to change the oil in our cars, running his small business day in and day out, checking in on the new neighbor’s renovation to see if they need to borrow a tool, taking our kid to archery practice and welding lessons and shooting the breeze with the other dads, helping with church clean-up after Mass, packing the car for long roadtrips, navigating said roadtrips, keeping up with the chicken feed, hanging Christmas lights on the house, knowing where that one obscure box is in the attic, deciding where to put the light switches as he re-wires the entire electrical system in our fixer-upper, and making fantastic carnitas and migas.

We each do our thing according to what we're good at. We both do a lot, and that’s perfectly okay. That, too, is called adulthood.

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5. Let your spouse be themselves. And let yourself be you, too.

Be cool with the dumb dad jokes. Let him chit-chat with the neighbor longer than you would. Shrug your shoulders at how often he re-watches The Lord of the Rings. Roll your eyes with lighthearted affection when he loses that one drill bit for the 4,596th time. Power through those mouth noises he makes next to you every morning while he eats his muesli and sips his coffee.

You have your own proclivities, too. You like that one 80s song he’s dying to skip. You have that annoying throat-clearing thing you have to do in the morning. You forget you’ve already told that story to him three times. You care more about 19th-century Gothic literature than is reasonable. You, too, lose your earbuds 4,596 times.

Don't wish the other person was more like you. That wouldn’t go well.

6. Read, watch, and listen to good stuff.

Either together or separately, take in good, ennobling things — both for reason #1 and because it’s fodder for good conversations. This pairs beautifully with those Saturday morning coffee dates; even when the week is bonkers-full and you feel like ships passing in the night, you can share that one thing you heard in a podcast over americanos and breakfast tacos at your favorite table in the corner.

7. Look for the good in each other.

Don’t keep account of wrongs. Notice the good things — how that one color t-shirt looks good on him, how he always drags the trash cans to the curb on Monday nights, that he’s inordinately kind on the phone to that one high-maintenance client of his — and then tell him so. Say a thousand more encouraging things than the tens of issues you may have with him.

Not only is this good practice in all relationships (similar to the ATM analogy with parenting: make plenty of deposits so that you have funds when you need to withdraw), but it’s good for your own perspective and well-being in the busyness of the day. When you actively look for the good, you, oddly enough, discover more and more good things.

8. Pray for each other.

Each morning before you each begin the day’s tasks, ask how you can pray for each other. And then do it. Really.

9. Play with each other.

Bring a deck of cards to your next coffee shop date and play a game or three. Watch an old-school movie together you haven't seen in decades, just for fun. Try a new hobby together, even when (especially when?) life is chronically busy. Play fun music in the car. On your next date see how long you can go without talking about the kids. Make dinner together. Make an effort to smile more. Play a low-key, well-timed, low-stakes prank on your spouse. Dust off a board game.

Remember that you love each other and like each other. Life is fun.

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Kyle and I are spending a few days out of town this weekend, renting a cabin and enjoying the simple pleasure of each other’s company. I remember on our first anniversary looking at each other with mock wonder, saying, “We did it! We survived!” while inwardly actually, genuinely kinda surprised we managed to do that grownup thing called “husband and wife” for 365 days.

Twenty-two years later, and I’m still amazed.

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”

― G.K. Chesterton