In 1987 I was a senior at a small, private, Christian college in New Brunswick and part of the protocol was that every student was assigned a seat in the cafeteria. The table of 8 to 10 would be a mix of freshman to seniors as well. This changed every week with the intention I suppose that the student body would have plenty of opportunity to meet one another.
I will never forget the first week. A freshman girl was at my table; she was full of energy, talked a lot and had a sense of humour. What also set her apart from the other freshmen girls was her hair that went past her waist.
I don’t actually remember how much we talked during that first week of dinner meals but I do remember one conversation. It was near the end of the week, the meal was over and students were making there way outdoors and suddenly I noticed this girl from my table.
She approached me and took me by surprise when she suddenly announced…“We’re going to get married someday.”
I was stunned…speechless.
This 18 year old freshman who I barely knew, just announced to me and to everyone in earshot, that we were going to get married someday.
I honestly didn’t know what to say. Beside the fact I had a serious relationship back home, I was thinking to myself this girl is crazy…I mean who does that?
I just walked away in silence, shaking my head.
Well, as it turns out, she was right. And this past weekend we celebrated 29 years of marriage. Somehow, this young 18 year old from a small New Brunswick town knew that someday, we’d be married.
29 years.
I am so grateful for our years together, I really am. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride. There were times, especially in our early years that we weren’t sure we’d make it. There were times we really struggled to love each other and even desire to stay together. We both had so much growing up to do and doing it together was challenging.
But we persevered.
So in a quiet moment over the weekend, we shared with each other what we thought were the keys to surviving 29 years of marriage; here are a few of them that we believe made a difference for us.
Our Shared Values Made It Possible To Embrace Our Clear Differences
Virginia Satir, a pioneer in family therapy once said, “We come together in our sameness but we grow in our differences.”
It’s no secret that Kathy and I are completely different. For example…
She’s an extrovert…I’m an introvert.
She loves parties…I love quiet dinners with a few close friends.
She is messy…I’m a neat-freak.
She leaves the cap/lid off…I tighten them.
She dirties the dishes…I clean them.
She avoids conflict…I would rather deal with it and move on.
She lives in the moment…I plan for the future.
But it’s our shared values that have given us a solid foundation on which to grow. We both have faith in God which has guided our choices and life direction. We had similar views about marriage and eventually raising kids. We valued our friendships and wanted our home to be a warm, inviting place for them.
Without shared values, I’m quite certain we would have bailed on our marriage a long time ago. But these same values gave us the depth of relationship to forge ahead and embrace our differences, no matter how aggravating and frustrating they might have been.
Shared values was not only important for our marriage but for our children as well. I wrote about the difference having family values was for us…you can read about it here.
We Were Intentional About What We Wanted
We knew that having a good marriage wasn’t going to just happen. So even before we said, “I do” we took advantage of resources that could help give us the insights and guidance we needed. We took marriage courses, we read books (well, I read them and she read the highlighted parts) and we stayed connected with other couples who we admired and wanted to emulate.
Like I said, it’s not like we didn’t struggle, but deliberately trying to learn and grow from multiple sources was critical for us.
We applied this same strategy to our parenting. Courses, books and talking with other parents helped us formulate our own parenting approach. And being on the same parenting page actually made our marriage stronger as well.
Divorce Was Off the Table
Like I said earlier, in the tough times we thought about walking away. In our darkest moments those thoughts would flood our minds and influence how we treated each other.
So we made a decision to take divorce off the table. We wouldn’t bring it up and we wouldn’t threaten to leave when things got difficult; we just agreed up front that we would stay together. But this wasn’t just a “grin and bare it” strategy. It was about creating a safe place for us to grow and change together.
One of our shared values was that our home would be a safe place for our friends, neighbours, extended family and our own children; so it should be for us as well. Simply choosing to be in it for life freed us up to put our energy into our marriage, rather than wonder how long it would last.
We Prioritized Our Marriage Even Over Our Kids
I know that might sound strange to some, but even once we had children, we wanted to ensure that our marriage was still front and centre for us.
One, kids are transient. Maybe not for some adult children who never seem to move out, but we knew that our kids no matter how much we love them, were passing through our home. We didn’t want to get to that point having neglected each other.
Especially when the kids were young they knew mom & dad had “couch time”. Megan & Alexander saw us take 10-15 minutes after I got home, to talk and get caught up with each other.
We believed that one of the best things we could do for our kids was give them a strong marriage; so keeping us a priority even through the crazy child-rearing years was important.
And now, our daughter is getting married next month and our son has been out of the house for almost 3 years serving with a mission organization. As we become empty nesters, we aren’t starting over as a couple, just continuing on to the next stage of family life.
We Don’t Argue About Money
Statistics suggest that money is a central theme to many marital conflict, but gratefully we have never argued about money. Even our kids have noticed that. So how did we do it? Here are a few things:
- our shared values played into how we saved and spent our money
- we discussed purchases and acted out of agreement
- we sought outside counsel for big purchases
- admittedly, Kathy would rather avoid money conversations which has lead her to trust me to manage our finances. But that also means that I have had to be trustworthy with our finances. For example, when we have purchased a car, we would discuss the need, the budget etc but she would likely just let me choose the car. (I’m also the guy who researched TV’s for a year before buying one so Kathy trusts that I will make a wise, informed decision) And to be honest, Kathy only knows our current cars by the red one or the black one 🙂 With our small business I take care of paying the bills, taxes and payroll. But by doing those things, it frees Kathy to do the things she wants to do and is good at.
- if a decision doesn’t go as planned. we don’t beat each other up about it…we learn what we can and move on. For example, years ago we bought a condo before we should have. Then after Megan was born we had to move because it was an adult building. Eventually we sold the condo and lost money because the condo market had retreated. But we learned from it and never blamed each other for that decision.
We Embrace Adventure
When we were dating, we went to Canada’s Wonderland where Kathy reluctantly agreed to ride her first rollercoaster. I convinced here that sitting in the front car was the best because you could see what was coming…I know, I know. She fell for it and we had a blast. Okay, I had a blast and Kathy was in tears before the first hill, but once we got off, we went right back on again.
Years later we would get family passes to the same park. Kathy never really stopped crying before getting on the rides, but together we embraced the adventure.
We’ve lived that way. We’ve embraced the adventure that our life together has been. For example…
- we’ve lived in 11 places in 29 years (7 in our first 3 years). That averages out to about 2.6 years per location. Now that’s not for everyone and there is a downside to moving so much; but even our kids saw every move as “family adventure”.
- we moved to BC to finish my undergrad degree then moved back to Ontario the next year. (that’s a story for another day)
- we tackled whitewater rapids on the Ottawa river
- we ran a 30km race together
- we’ve pastored 3 churches in 3 cities
- we launched a small business…a cafe, just over 3 years ago without any restaurant experience…and it’s still going!!!
And what’s most exciting to me, is that we still talk and dream about what’s next; about where we want to go from here?
I’m so thankful that over 30 years ago Kathy walked across campus to tell me that we were going to get married…she was right and we’re still going.
Feeling stuck? Not sure what to do next? Your life not where you want it to be? Life coaching can help. Contact me to arrange a free 45-minute discovery call. Let’s talk.
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