Things I've learned the hard way during 20 years of marriage
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Guys, This week Brit and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. I'm finishing this up today after getting back from an overnight in Boise, about a 30 minute drive from where we live in Caldwell. We do these mini-vacations a couple times per year for anniversaries or birthdays. Highly recommend. I'm feeling inspired to do a "20 lessons from 20 years married," but I don't want to just send some generic list. Instead, I want to share the things I've mostly learned the hard way. Unfortunately, many of the most important lessons in life can seemingly only be learned the hard way. And yet, I might share something that hits you hard enough to stick. I'm always balancing how much to share without oversharing. I also don't want to violate any boundaries with Brittany or make her feel uncomfortable, so I run emails like this by her before sending. As I shared this one with her, I had to admit that a few of these still feel aspirational and make me feel like a hypocrite. I know the principle is true. I'm just not acting accordingly often enough. That's the hardest part, right? Doing what we already know is right. That's the journey. Saying what we know to be true, out loud, to people who will hold us to it. Thanks for being those people. Let's get to it. I'm called to lead. For too many years, I forced Brittany to carry weight that she shouldn't have needed to carry. Many of the stories below are a result of me not fully stepping into my leadership role. Now I'm the family's CEO, she's the COO, and together we're the family's leadership team. That shift was up to me. I didn't ask for permission. Leadership is a mindset. It's about leading yourself first, then leading your family with a blend of humility and fierce resolve. It's not about controlling or trying to change other people. Lead yourself first. You're the only person you can change. Become the man that the woman you want deserves. Your wife may or may not change. But if she does, it will be because she saw your self-leadership and her respect and admiration for you grew. This doesn't mean you bury all your feelings and frustrations. More on that below. It means that when you do share, it isn't with the expectation that she will change. 50/50 marriage doesn't work. 50/50 would have been an upgrade in those early years when Brittany was carrying more than half. As I stepped up, I expected her to match my effort. The reality is that it's impossible for each person to contribute exactly half in each key area. But the mindset is what's most destructive, because it leads to scorekeeping, and scorekeeping poisons relationships. Everything gets better when we discuss and set our roles, and then I strive to give way more than 50%. Most of it is doing the right thing when you don't feel like it. Especially when you don't feel like it. I wouldn't say I love you when I wasn't feeling love in that moment. I wouldn't send the flirty text if I was annoyed with her. I thought that was honest and principled. Now I know it's most important to do a good thing in the moments you least feel like it. Screw your feelings. Get over yourself. Do the right thing no matter how it makes you feel. Being a "nice guy" is not a good thing. In fact, it may be worse than being a jerk, because it's insidious and kills relationships slowly and silently. "Happy wife, happy life" leads to men harboring quiet resentments that plant seeds of contempt. And wives lose respect for passive aggressive husbands who lack a spine. If you can't stand up to her, she also knows you can't stand up for her. I feared Brittany’s emotions for too many years. Now I show my love for her when I'm willing to do or say the difficult thing in the moment for the long term health of the relationship. Stop expecting your wife to be like you. Instead, be curious and seek to understand her. She's attracted to a man and you're attracted to a woman because you are different. So why did I expect Brittany to react the same way to things? To think through problems and decisions the same way? To speak literally and through facts rather than feelings? Women are different creatures. Not lesser, but different. Releasing Brittany from the expectations I have for myself was everything. Besides, the strongest teams have people who bring different, complementary strengths and perspectives. Secrecy kills marriages. The nature of the secret matters, but it's the deception itself that's the actual killer. Trust is destroyed, and distrust kills safety and intimacy. I had a secret that came out about a decade ago. It devastated the relationship. By the grace of God and Brittany's willingness to forgive, we rebuilt faster than I deserved. Your secret will come out. Be sure of it. The only question is whether you'll have the courage to bring it into the light or whether you'll get caught. But don't share everything with her. It might seem like I'm contradicting the last one. This isn't about keeping secrets and it has nothing to do with deception. But as a man, I have raw and unprocessed feelings that she doesn't understand and shouldn't be burdened with. That doesn't mean I bottle them up or process alone. Men need a handful of other trusted men to dump this stuff out to and sort through together. Processed feelings get shared with my wife, in the right way, at the right time. Assume good intent. This one sounds obvious. Here's where I specifically failed with it. When communicating with Brittany, I can be calm and kind and give her the benefit of the doubt. But when I'm alone, I find myself ruminating, entertaining thoughts about how she's not only wrong, she's actually being unkind or unappreciative. The most important application isn't your actual communication. It's the discipline to identify and dismiss the toxic thoughts instead of entertaining them. Conflict avoided is conflict postponed and magnified. I'm not overly disagreeable and Brittany doesn't naturally lean into conflict either. Our pattern? Something small bothers one of us. Neither of us loves conflict so neither brings it up. But we don't let it go either, so it leaks into how we treat each other. Eventually I raise it, and I over-pursue because I want it resolved, and the pushing makes her shut down further. Then I pull back and go cold and tell myself I'm giving her space. Eventually it blows up or gets swept under the rug, planting seeds of resentment. This isn't about fighting. When you fight, you're trying to hurt each other. Disagreement is conflict around ideas, and it's absolutely necessary, even when you end up agreeing to disagree. Repair is everything. I've messed up countless times, large and small. The good news is that every failure is an opportunity to do the thing that makes relationships healthiest. Quality repair. When I apologize and take ownership without the "but you," that isn't weakness. It's being secure enough to be honest about my shortcomings. Repair done well leads to a relationship that's stronger than if the conflict had never happened. If you can hardly remember the last time you apologized, read that as a big red flag. Take your marriage seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. I can get really tense during any conflict or disagreement. I'm frustrated. My jaw clenches and my chest tightens. Everything about my body language and energy sets the temperature for the disagreement we're having. She reflects it back and the conversation spirals. It doesn't have to be that way. A simple smile or laugh can cut through all the tension. It's not a battle. You're on the same team. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Stop expecting her to initiate. “Babe, I’m always up for it so just let me know whenever you are”. That’s what I’d told her at one point, and then I’d get disappointed if I didn’t feel like she initiated enough. This is passivity, not pursuit. That is putting the responsibility to initiate on her and then silently scorekeeping. The feminine wants to be pursued by the masculine. So pursue her. Clearly, warmly, without hinting and without hoping she reads your cues. And if she says “not now”, how you handle that is everything. Pouty men with hurt feelings are the opposite of attractive. A grounded man takes the no, stays warm, stays connected, and comes back another time with his desire fully intact. Make her feel safe and stable. As a man, I’ll never fully understand the danger women feel. We live in a remarkably safe world and yet threats remain. Masculine energy creates safety and contains life's chaos. Yes, she needs to feel safe from you. But being weak and passive also means she doesn't know if you can protect her from everyone and everything else. Being harmless isn't virtuous. Be capable of being dangerous, then control it. Over time she relaxes and softens, because she trusts that you're both capable and willing to take care of the things that matter most. Put date night on the calendar. Scheduling what's important doesn't kill spontaneity. It takes the pressure off and creates more room for it. I used to think that scheduling things and setting reminders would strip out the romance. But everything else that's important to me is planned and scheduled. Date night should be too. And like other important rhythms, miss once, but do everything you can not to miss twice in a row. I can't be a great father without being a great husband. There have been times, especially when my kids were younger, when they were a lot of work but the relationship was easy. The connection was fun and stress free in a way adult relationships rarely are. It was easy for me to justify the time and attention they were getting, sometimes at Brittany's expense. The best thing we can do for our kids is to not put them at the center. The world doesn't revolve around them and our marriage shouldn't either. Healthy, stable kids see friendship, teamwork and romance between their parents. Keep the friendship alive. We've been married 20 years and together more than 25. At 41 years old, we're very different people than we were at 16. But the core of who we are and what we value has been steady. We were friends first and always will be. And yet we aren't always interested in the same shows, we don't always find the same topics interesting, and there isn't huge overlap in our sense of humor. So we do the work of finding where our interests actually do overlap, and we spend time there together. Just like every other part of marriage, friendship sometimes takes intentional effort. Your marriage needs a mission. Your marriage will outlast the kids, so don't center your relationship on them. Talk about what you exist to accomplish together beyond parenting. I'll admit this is still something Brittany and I are working on. We each have our own work and volunteering. We have plenty of fun together. But what else might we be called to as a couple? Relationships die slowly and then all at once. Hard seasons are expected. They don't mean you married the wrong person. But if you've been neglecting it and catch it before it dies, it takes real time and work to restore. Sometimes years. There's a debt to be paid, and it can be tempting to declare bankruptcy and start over. There's a reason relationship success rates following divorce are dismal. You're part of the problem, you bailed instead of fixing the problem, and now you brought that problem into a new relationship. Brittany and I have gone through hard seasons, but the D word has never been said or even considered for a moment. We've had to do the hard work of restoring what was neglected. Nothing in life is more worth the effort. Fix what, or who, is leading you. The first decade of our marriage mostly consisted of me putting on the right appearance, doing enough to keep Brittany happy, deferring control and decisions to her, and hiding the parts of me that might upset her. She sensed the insecurity and the lack of integrity. After the crisis I mentioned above, I finally realized she needed a man who not only led himself well, but who was first being led well. My faith strengthened. I wanted to be strong and healthy not just for her, but for me. Integrity and confidence grew in me, and respect, admiration and attraction grew in her. I frequently say that family leadership starts with self-leadership. That's partly true. It really starts with what, or who, is leading you. If you made it through all twenty, hit reply and let me know if one or two stood out as helpful, or where you'd disagree based on your own experience. I respond to every email. Keep leading, -Andrew P.S. I'm launching a small group on September 1 and I'm looking for a handful of men who:
Content like this is fine. What actually changes things is surrounding yourself with guys taking action alongside you. I still have room. Email andrew@fam-lead.com, and I'll tell you whether it's a fit. |