30 Years and counting!
September 1st, Jodi and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage together. I have been reflecting upon this momentous occasion and thinking about how in the world two people who didn’t know each other at all really, got married at a young age after dating all of 3 months, successfully raised two kids, are grandparents to six beautiful grandkids, and are now living our best lives together. What is the secret sauce?! It is the question I think most people want the answer to when they are about to tie the knot, or have tied it but now are seeing that the knot is loosening and the marriage is falling apart. I can’t say, I am an expert on this but I can say after years of experience I have learned a few things that I thought might help you no matter which of the aforementioned situations you find yourself in today.
First, and this is not easy, is to find a way to keep your agency. Before you got married, you were your own person. Don’t forget this! You had passions, interests, and things that made you happy apart from the connection to your life partner. In fact, I would wager to guess that the person you are about to marry or have been married to for some time actually fell in love with those things as they were part of you. They attracted him or her to you, so don’t stop them (unless you want to, I mean that’s what agency is, you have that right!) The reason this isn’t easy is legion. Part of you feels you need to give some of those things up for the other person, or for the other persons (if kids are involved) and you set them aside. I get that, but don’t leave them on the side forever! Pick them back up, be yourself, you ARE those things too. Some other reasons may be your alignment to religious beliefs and this too I understand, the two shall become one thought process. This is okay but bring you to it, don’t give up you for them, give YOU to them. And of course, one final sociological look into this, there is an overarching patriarchal mindset when it comes to marriage as well. That women are in some way the weaker sex. This is absurd of course, but this plays into how we come into a marriage and how a marriage lasts. Secret Sauce ingredient 1: Keep your agency. Agency is the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential.
Second, it may seem counter intuitive once you have read number one, is to practice selflessness. I know you are like, WTH, Shawn, how can I maintain agency and practice selflessness all at the same time?! Stick with me for a few more lines here fam. If both of you are keeping your agency AND you know who you are, it is much easier to practice this all important ingredient in a marriage. If I, knowing who I am, set aside what I desire for the person I desire most, that person will in turn do the same for me when I am of need of their selflessness. Make no mistake, this is a give and take. A quid pro quo arrangement. It takes a masters level person to preform this maneuver, you won’t get it right just out of the gate. In fact, you will struggle learning how to maintain agency and be selfless all at the same time! But give a try, see what happens. You might find your partner takes advantage of this….Speak up! Use your words and let them know, you give and give and have not received of this ingredient for quite a while. Here’s a final word on this ingredient. If you have been practicing it for quite a while and your partner doesn’t recipricate in selflessness, maybe its time to restart. Let them know that you have found this new selfless thing and would like to work on it together to see how it goes. Give it a shot, you obviously want it to work or you wouldn’t still be hanging around! Secret Sauce ingredient 2: Practice selflessness. Selflessness is concern more with the needs and wishes of others than with one's own.
If you have read this far, this is something important to you in this time of your life and I congratulate you on that. So now for the cheese. Love deeply, laugh often, explore new things with each other but don’t neglect appreciating the everyday things you experience together as well. Those everyday things are your things, they are your moments, they are the trips and the falls, the tears and the dishes, they all stack up you see, and all this too makes for a beautiful life.
