We’ve always tried to spend less than we make.
Eat by candlelight as often as possible (even when you don’t want to. Sometimes just striking the match can be the trigger toward reconciliation after a disagreement)
Remember the reasons you married. In my case, I said to her: “you make me laugh, you give me the freedom to fail, you’ll live anywhere in the world”
She responded, “Anywhere but Los Angeles…” and after assuring her that that would never happen, we felt God’s call to move there and she did!
The best centerpieces are summer wildflowers in an empty beer bottle
We’ve always tried to keep a sabbath day. These days its hiking together, mostly in silence, and then sharing an evening meal.
The TV is rarely a friend of intimacy – but we don’t judge ourselves when we watch some.
Being radically different, in that we share no common letters on the Meyers-Briggs or numbers on the Enneagram, isn’t a bad thing….
…IF (and it’s a big if) you can begin to see other’s differences, not as annoying, but as completing you.
For example: Donna loves details and I hate them. Just this morning she pointed out that I bought the Italian version of Grandpa’s Sausage from Owen’s Meats. I told her I didn’t even know there was an Italian version. She said, “That’s because you don’t read labels carefully.” Instead of being annoyed, though, I think she appreciates my breadth of curiosity that makes me read more widely than deeply…
…and I appreciate her attention to detail because: insurance, taxes, bills, desks to organize, closets and counters to clean of clutter, calendars, airline tickets, parking at the airport, and on and on it goes… Every detail is a gift to me!
In spite of vast differences, a shared passion is a gift. Ours is the outdoors.
But I like speed and peaks and she likes paying attention to forest details and mostly level ground.
Rather than dig our heels in – we compromise. I find scrambles to the tops of peaks she can do, or ridges with views (which she loves), and I leave the meandering snowshoe trips to her and her friends, and the hard skiing where I shoot for 55mph or more, or peak-bagging to me and my friends.
Learning to compromise in the wilderness has been the lab, but the same kind of compromise has bled into lots of other areas of life…
…like food – where I’m increasingly Paleo, but not a zealot about it because of French Toast and cheese sandwiches but because bread doesn’t treat her well, I eat that stuff when I’m alone in the city.
Which reminds me that travel brings reality to the saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” After a time apart, when I’m away teaching, my appreciation of Donna is rekindled, as there are o-so-many things I miss when we’re apart….
…as we are regularly in this season of life due to our dual living locations of Seattle and the mountains. This is because of our privileged season of life to provide a home for Donna’s mom, which is a reminder that holding plans with an open hand and being flexible is far greater than making autonomous goals and going after them with rigid dogma.
We’ve always given some money away – giving to our local church and a few other things we support. Never hoard it all for yourselves.
Our devotional lives are dramatically different and I eventually learned that that’s OK. There were years though, when I coveted greater spiritual compatibility. Now I celebrate our different ways of viewing the world, and we’ve learned to listen to each other better as a result.
As we’ve grown older, we’ve had more talks about our sex life than we did early on…
…which have resulted in dramatic changes in our intimacy practices. This is a testimony to honesty, vulnerable, and serving the other….
…and as a result, our life in this area is better than ever! (our only regret is that we didn’t start this a few decades earlier)
We’re not athletes or obsessive dieters, but we try to exercise most days, and eat decently. We’ve been fortunate to be healthy and count that as both a privilege and a reason to keep pursuing and expanding healthy habits for spirit, soul, and body.
Our best conversations are ones that nobody else will ever know about
(And now a few from Donna): Laugh often.
Remind myself that I’m not always right and sometimes “winning” is an illusion. Miss Crankypants can be hard to live with too.
Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. We are changeable people who live in changing times. What worked yesterday may not be working well today and may not work tomorrow so be open to change and adapt.
Make do with what we already have. Mend it. Use it up. Wear it out. Get every ounce out if it whether it’s an older car, an “outdated” article of clothing or furniture, the end of the toothpaste, (and, yes, tea bags are good for two cups of tea… Sometimes more, but I digress…)
Cultivate the things we both enjoy and keep doing them. For us, it’s been nature and simply being out in God’s cathedrals. I help him slow down and pay attention. He helps me push myself a little harder.
Be curious. About everything. Don’t settle for what I already know and stagnate there. Learn new things. Be open to other points of view. Stay nimble.
Love God. Love others. Period.
Cook together. Try new recipes. Tweak old favorites. We enjoy the process of alternating between executive chef and sous-chef. Clean the kitchen. Together.
Learn to fight fair and then let go of past transgressions. Don’t keep a storehouse of bitterness. Let it go and move forward. Forgiveness needs to go both ways.
Encourage Richard’s interests and be willing to enter into them, even if it’s not necessarily my favorite thing.
Richard was very intentional about cultivating our relationship as a couple especially during those parenting years. It’s important to remember what we appreciated about each other in the beginning and keep encouraging that today.
Date nights were not that great if all we did was talk about our kids. (Sorry kids. You were not the center of our universe…) We tried to talk about ourselves. How we’re doing as individuals and as a couple. We’re not afraid of hard conversations any more. Becoming good listeners needs to start with honest sharing.
Conflict is not always a negative thing as long as our children see honest forgiveness, humility and reconciliation as the end result. (We weren’t perfect at this but we tried.)
Embrace each day as a gift to be enjoyed. Life is uncertain. Since we don’t know how much time we have, we need to make each day count for something positive to share with our world.
Don’t go to bed angry for two reasons: 1. You won’t really sleep well anyway. 2. Trying to have a “rational” conversation in the morning while you’re sleep-deprived probably won’t go as well. So skip the bad nights’ sleep and talk it out. We made a perfect divot together in the middle of our ancient futon for a reason. (Sorry if that’s TMI. But it’s true.)