I’m not sure how my daughter got subscribed to this email list. (But Ava, if you’re reading this, you might want to delete this one right now. Actually, just hit unsubscribe. You’ve been warned).
Here’s the thing, my husband and I haven’t had the smoothest relationship. I’m not going to sugarcoat anything and pretend like we’ve got things figured out. We don’t.
In fact, I had an interview with him set up and planned about sex, marriage, and falling back in love, and it almost didn't happen because, right around the time we were supposed to record, I had a brief moment of…
Have I actually fallen back in love with this man? Because I don’t really like him right now.
You know the moment (you do, right?).
Of course, we got through the little hiccup and recorded the show, talking through the lessons we’ve kept and a few we’ve tossed from the original Sex Talk Podcast series.
LISTEN TO THE LATEST PODCAST HERE!
Needless to say, this reminded me that, even in our imperfect marriage, love isn’t always enough. It’s choosing to continuously fall back in love.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in a wedding sermon he wrote:
“Today you are young and very much in love, and you think that your love can sustain your marriage. It can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.”
Honestly, I think we need more reminders of that.
Love isn’t a place. It’s a choice fed by your commitment and decisions.
Maybe I took it to heart because love hasn’t sustained us. I haven’t always loved him, at least not like I did when we got married.
And yet, we have been sustained.
That’s why I will forever believe, at least for us, that falling in love isn’t just a place you arrive and stay at. It’s not just who you were and what it meant when you got married.
Falling in love is a weekly, sometimes daily decision. It takes intentionality. And it takes admitting that the person across the table isn’t the person you married.
That’s why I say I’ve been married to three different men.
Because my husband pre-kids was different from my husband post-kids. And he is different now than he was a decade ago. Rightfully so, aren’t all of us?
Sure, he’s the same man, and yet he’s changed. He’s grown and evolved. And I started to realize our marriage had been so hard because we weren’t honoring each other's growth.
And while the honeymoon phase was great, let’s be real, I would 1000% be annoyed if we were still living in it. Because I don’t need to stay awake talking until midnight, and I don't need to laugh at his jokes that aren’t funny.
I mean, maybe I should.
But you know what I’m saying.
We had made our marriage a picture of who we were when we got married, and we failed to be amazed at who we were becoming.
Maybe this is why so many marriages end. We attach the marriage to the person we married on the day we married them and neglect to see them through the lens of who God is making them.
We compare the man on the couch to the twenty-year-old who no longer exists and feel betrayed that he’s gone.
Not to mention, I’ve changed too. And if I’ve been married to three different men, then he has probably been married to ten different women. And kudos to him, because they haven’t always been the best iteration of me.
If the roles had been reversed, I’m not sure I would have stayed with me. And yet he did.
I bring this up because, in my life, it has been a game changer to stop asking, "Why aren’t you who you used to be?" and start asking, "Who are you now?"
Instead of forcing him to exist as his twenty-year-old self, I want to know how I can honor him at {almost} forty. And not just honor him, but actually be madly in love with him.
Which brings me to this week’s plot twist:
What if you didn’t fall out of love with your spouse. You just failed to uncover the new version of them?
Marriage isn’t what it used to be!
A few years ago, I read something about why so many marriages are failing. I can’t find the source anymore, but it was good. If anyone knows, please credit them.
Anyways, the idea was that the purpose of marriage has changed, but our view of it hasn’t.
Fifty years ago, marriage was about survival. People needed each other to survive, to thrive, and even to grow a family. Today, no matter how unfortunate it might sound, that’s just not the case. Women are independent, and heck, we don’t even need an intimate encounter to make a baby anymore. You can do that in a petri dish.
And yet, what if this transition was a gift, not a problem? We just have to see it differently.
The point that stuck with me was this: moving marriage away from survival has opened the door for marriage to become something greater. Marriage is now about growth and development to help each other grow into the highest version of who God made them to be.
Marriage is not about survival but about bettering each other, helping one another grow, shift, and become all that we are here to be.
I really liked that because it helped me see the goodness of the union. It helped me see the purpose in the pressure of two people existing together. And it also highlights that it’s not just an arrival. It’s an ongoing process.
The covenant of marriage is (one heck of a) journey.
And we were literally living out the opposite of this, which is no wonder we couldn’t find any common ground. Our marriage became a competition.
Literally, we would argue over who was more tired, then pit it against each other to decide who won and got to go out alone in the morning. We also tended to remind each other of how much we were doing, creating a checklist of who did more… and trust me, I kept a tight mental spreadsheet that dated back to shortly after we were married.
I stored my points deep in my brain and was ready to use them at a moment’s notice.
And yet, it never ended anywhere positive. Me against him always meant we both lost.
The reality was we were both exhausted. But if we had valued each other enough to see we were on the same team, how much differently that could have looked.
Of course everything makes sense in hindsight. Which is also why I want to use it as foresight now. To remind myself that we’re together not because we have to be, but because we get to help grow each other into the best versions of ourselves.
And if this is true, then of course, marriage is a process of constantly learning about each other. Of constantly falling back in love. To love each new iteration just like you loved the first time and honor all of the changes that come with it (even if you don’t always prefer it).
The secret we’ve kept
On the latest podcast, we share something we haven’t told many people; we renewed our vows this past spring.
It was the first time in 18 years we had spoken vows to each other, and it was LONG overdue. It wasn’t fancy or public (although can I make a push for more public vow renewal ceremonies, because I need a party to attend).
It was a personal rededication to our marriage and to the people and the union we had grown into.
And it felt so fresh.
Truthfully, I don’t think my twenty-year-old self even understood what a freaking vow was. How could I? I hadn’t been through anything that challenged me in the way marriage and raising children would.
Plus, we didn’t even write our vows. We ripped off the standard vows most people say and yet had little meaning. We were just saying them to get the show rolling.
Sure, at twenty, “for better or worse” sounds romantic. You picture holding hands on your deathbed. But you don’t picture the 3 a.m. screaming baby while whispering in your ear, “I swear I’d divorce you right now if the courthouse was open.”
You don’t understand the job changes, the empty checking account, the two of you sitting in a car in the driveway because neither of you wants to admit your fault.
And when you get to “in sickness and in health,” that’s a whole other boat. You can’t even imagine what that actually means.
And yet that’s exactly why this matters. Why we need to be people who change with our spouse, to encourage our best versions, to show up no matter how much you love the current iteration, because that’s what marriage is.
Our new rule: renew it as often as you renew your driver's license.
Our mentor told us about her friend who claims marriage vows should be renewed as often as a driver’s license. And she’s not wrong.
Think about it. We renew all kinds of things, because people change and everyone needs to be brought up to date. Even your phone won’t go a month without asking you to agree to new terms. You sign new contracts at work.
But marriage? We attempt to live in a relationship for fifty years without once stopping to evaluate what has changed, let alone honor those changes.
It’s the one place in life we never seem to recommit.
And we wonder why so many marriages are failing. And why the next generation isn’t even choosing it.
But after renewing our vows, I saw the benefit of speaking a promise, not over the person he was at twenty, but the one I see now. The one I’ve seen the worst of, been through the worst with, and still say yes to.
That means something.
The holiest kind of work!
I’ll leave you with the advice I got at a bridal shower. The advice that makes a whole lot more sense now than it did then.
“The best thing you can do for your kids is to stay madly in love with your spouse.”
I didn’t know how much work that would take. And at the same time, I also see how good and holy that is.
Because long after the kids are gone, and the last weekend tournament wraps up, it’s going to be the two of us at the table. Just us. And all the versions that got us there.
And I don’t want to just like that person. I want to be mad about him. That starts today, here, in the moment. I’m showing up here in all of the imperfection, and I hope this encourages you to do the same!
It’s not easy, but it is holy and totally worth it!
Check out the latest podcast where I interview Payton on Sex, Intimacy, and Falling Back in Love. I also share some thoughts on intimacy over here. Because it’s not always what you think it is.
In the meantime, I’d love to start a thread of the best-kept marriage advice. No matter how unconventional. Drop yours below.