25 Lessons from 25 Years of Marriage

We've stayed married for 25 years, somehow, so let me pretend I know what I'm doing

Twenty-five years ago, my wife and I got married. And not a single person at the wedding, bride and groom included, would have bet that we’d still be married by now.

Then again, our marriage was more of a bet than a certainty. We loved each other so much that we both decided, “I will carry this regret to my deathbed if I don’t give this a shot.” So we did the magnificently risky thing, we tied the knot, and…

Twenty-five years later, here we are. Best friends still.

The theme to our anniversary was “Wear that outfit you never get the excuse to wear.” Obviously, I ran with it.

So lemme give you twenty-five hard-earned lessons learned over twenty-five years.

(And while you’re at it, briefly endure this cheap plug for my book The Dragon Kings of Oklahoma and its upcoming sequel, The Fae Lords of Oklahoma, only $2.99 at Amazon. That’s the last you’ll hear of this tawdry commerce today; let us move on.)

Practical Kindnesses Are The Best.

“Being reliable” is a secret weapon in a long-term relationship. Roses and romantic dinners are a wondrous spice, but I’ve learned the meat of the meal should be the pragmatic stuff: showing up when you said you would, cleaning the dishes before they ask, keeping the bank account balanced.

Anticipation is a Necessary Skill.

Speaking of practical kindnesses, part of being a good partner is paying attention to what they want and doing it without being asked. Taking out the trash before they ask comes off as a kindness; taking out the trash after they’ve asked you three times comes off as grudging.

Your job isn’t to do what they say; your job is to listen to more than their words, and demonstrate that you not only know what makes ‘em happy, but you can do the nice thing before they even know they want it.

Thank Easily and Often.

Some couples say you shouldn’t get credit for everyday tasks like taking out the trash without being asked. We say that thanking someone for routine kindnesses shows that you still appreciate them.

Look, there’s plenty of folks in the world who don’t take out the trash - and you’re lucky enough to date someone who does! Celebrate that. Express gratitude freely for the tiniest things. Cherish what you have, even if it’s long since become the baseline behavior.

Stupid Things Can Be Important.

The little in-jokes you share? The tiny rituals you have, like exaggeratedly saying “Ope!” every time you pass each other in the hallway? Those are part of what define you as a couple. Don’t underestimate those tiny bonding moments.

Take an Interest in Each Other’s Hobbies.

I have zero interest in quilting. But I have cultivated enough knowledge of the craft that I can admire my wife’s crisp edges, her color work, her designs. Likewise, she could care less about Magic: the Gathering, but if I say “Did you hear what the dimwit fans did to Commander this week?” she knows that “Commander” is a Magic format and is happy to listen to the latest spilled tea in Magicville.

You don’t have to be into everything they are - but if they wanna geek out about their thing, you should be by their side ready to geek out with them. (At least about the highlights, anyway.) Because…

A Large Part of a Long-Term Relationship is Growing Together.

You will change over time. They will change. This is unavoidable.

What is avoidable is changing so much that you drift apart.

And the reason couples often drift apart is because they live their lives in isolation, with a little overlapping semicircle of a Venn diagram. Which means that when one partner changes, they do it in the isolated part of the diagram - they’re changing who they are with their friends, they’re changing who they are at their job, they’re changing who they are when they’re at conventions -

And then their lover wakes one day to realize the person their partner has become is now incompatible with them.

I’m not saying you should never have time alone. But too many couples take the attitude of “If I’m not involved, I don’t care.” Yet you should care. Because otherwise what you’re effectively saying is that “I only love the parts of you that intersect with my needs,” and does that sound like a sustainable environment to you?

Reevaluate People Once In A While.

“My stepdad’s a total jerk,” I warned my kids the first time they were about to meet him. “Cold, snide, you’re just gonna have to learn to deal with him.”

Except they met my stepdad. And they thought he was funny and likeable.

Turns out what had happened was twofold: One, in the last fifteen years my stepdad had mellowed considerably, and two, when I’d met my stepdad he was a new visitor to a house with a pretty bitchy teenager still reeling from his mother’s divorce, so of course we hadn’t gotten along.

But I was older, he was older… it was time to reevaluate.

Because my kids let me see him through a new light, by the time he died I was hugging my stepdad and sending him Father’s Day cards. And that only happened because I was willing to step away from old grievances and see who they were now.

(Less heartwarming: It is also useful to periodically reevaluate old, beloved relationships to see whether they’re still healthy.)

Speaking Your Partner’s Love Language Feels Awkward At First.

I’m a person of words. In love language terms, I’m a “words of affirmation.”

My wife wants the house cleaned.

Problem is, for me, cleaning the kitchen doesn’t feel like love.  It feels like some sort of weird performance art.  Here she is, upset and needing roses, and I’m in the other room washing crusty oatmeal out of a dish.

But you know what you do? You recite the magic incantations and don’t expect to feel it internally. What will happen over time is that you may never feel the love - even after all this time, I still would rather bring Gini roses than vacuum the carpet - but you’ll come to see how happy they become.

Sometimes, Nobody’s to Blame.

Life’s full of crappy situations where nobody did anything wrong: The car springs a flat tire, you misinterpret ambiguous statements in opposite ways, you accidentally hit a partner’s nerve in a way that neither of you could have foreseen. Wrestling with each other to determine who’s at fault will just make things worse.

If your first goal during every upset becomes “Find who’s to blame,” you’re doomed. Learn when it’s appropriate to blame the person, and when it’s appropriate to blame the situation.

“I’m Sure You Did.”

Likewise, we’re all human. We forget things. It’s entirely possible that your partner told you about this relative coming to town, or this party you said you were going to tonight.

Assuming you trust your partner not to be a gaslighting jerk, the proper answer is not to get into a fight over “who told what and when,” but rather issue a kindly “I’m sure you did tell me - and I’m sorry, it slipped my mind. What can we do now to fix this?”

(This particular tip comes in handier at the tail end of the 25 years, when everyone’s getting a bit senior-brained.)

Feelings are a Symptom, Not a Diagnosis.

It’s fine to be mad, or sad, or scared, or jealous. But too many couples go “If I’m mad, they must have done something to make me mad.”

No. Your anger is valid; it’s a sign that you’re hurting. But the real work comes in interrogating that hurt to find its true cause - seeing if your partner actually was at fault, determining what the best fix is to help you feel better, discussing it with them cooperatively.

And it may well be that you’re mad, but it’s unfair of you to be mad. Or sad. Or jealous. Unless you can be mature enough to look at that squarely, you’re just reacting blindly.

But Remember To Listen To Your Feelings.

If you’re the sort of person who’s been trained to attend to other peoples’ needs, you can talk yourself out of listening to your feelings. And sometimes you really have to listen… except you’ll go “Wow, that person makes me jealous” and then smother that feeling under layers of “Well, that’s unfair to them” and “What does it really matter?” and “I guess I could be wrong”…

And it turns out that yeah, that person really is trying to drive a wedge between you and your partner.

Assuming every emotion you have is justified can make you abusive. Assuming no emotion you have is justified can make you the abused. So be careful.

What’s Satisfying Is Rarely Effective.

One of the tricks adults learn is that a good life is full of unsatisfying compromises.  Nine times out of ten, your choice is to feel good, or to do good.  It can be cathartic to fly into righteous rages, but favor calm negotiations whenever possible.

Apologizing Unilaterally Is Important.

Just because someone said something hurtful doesn’t mean it’s okay for me to say something hurtful. And occasionally, you have to apologize for your bad behavior even when they don’t.

This is especially relevant when raising children. Because when your children do something unrepentantly, overtly disrespectful and you lose your temper, it is not fun at all to walk back in there and say, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that” even when they’re still wrong.

But modeling that good behavior is vital for kids. And it pays off… in, like, ten to twenty years.

There is Room for Only One Person in the Freakout Tree.

Gini and I believe firmly in the the “tree theory” of relationships: any couple lives on a small island with one tree.  (We envision it as a coconut tree on a sandy beach.)

When things get bad, one person – and only one person – climbs into the tree to have their freakout, while it’s the other person’s job to stay on the ground and talk them down.

If you’ve got two furious monkeys in the tree flinging coconuts at each other, you’re both gonna tumble down painfully - and there’s gonna be nobody to catch either of you. So we have a strict tree protocol in that we may alternate positions in the tree very rapidly, but we never both shimmy up that trunk simultaneously. And we’re generous in terms of switching off.

In practical terms, that means that if Gini’s upset, I’ll be reassuring her. If I’m upset, she’s reassuring me. And if while she’s upset she says something careless that makes me even more upset, she will clamber down from the freakout tree to explain what she really meant, and once I’m patched back up she will climb back up again to resume her previous freakout.

Explicitly asking “Hey, can I have the tree?” has saved our bacon more than once.

Productive Arguments are a Collaborative Effort.

Here’s a definition for you: A bad argument is where everybody walks away with the same opinions they had going into the argument - like, say, they don’t wanna have sex with me any more.

A good argument is where people come away with usable information - we’re not having as much as sex as I’d like because they’re working long hours. Maybe there’s something I can do to make things easier for them to relax.

So remember, you can have fights that are actually productive - so long as you treat it as a cooperative game you’re both playing where the rules are:

• You are trying to figure out how your partner works;

• Your partner is trying to figure out how you work.

Whenever you get any new information, you’re winning. Even if it may not feel like it at the time.

Allow Takebacks During Arguments.

Words are hard. Expressing emotions is hard. Doing both during a fraught dispute is difficult at best. So at some point, one or both of you is likely to say something they didn’t quite mean.

What often happens then is that the other person seizes on to that exact phrasing: “Oh, no - you said I was the worst badminton player in the world! The world! Explain what you meant by that!” And they won’t let them move on from that one misstatement.

If someone says something really hurtful and is trying to walk it back, give them to space to explore what they wanted to say, not the actual words that fell out of their mouth. That opinion may still be hurtful, but at least let it be accurate.

Never Settle Your Arguments on the Internet.

It is extremely hard to present something from your perspective accurately on the Internet, meaning that the argument is near-invariably tilted in your favor. And even if you do manage to be even-handed, lots of folks on the Internet are primed to inform you that any dispute is a red flag that means DUMP THAT S.O.B. (Not to mention your friends will automatically circle the wagons.)

If you’re in the middle of a fight, don’t post to Facebook - even if you’re vagueposting. Don’t vent to strangers who won’t be there after the decisions have all been made. Don’t expose your partner to hostile attention they didn’t ask for.

By all means, talk to your friends and family and therapists to get some feedback! Getting multiple perspectives on a disagreement is healthy (and people who want to wall you off from outside feedback are often manipulating you into isolation). But resorting to the Internet to determine “who’s right” all too often leads to the most toxic possible outcomes.

Don’t Support People Who Don’t Support Your Relationship.

This is a tricky one, because sometimes your friends are right not to support a relationship - they’re watching out for you, and they’re seeing signs that you’re not.

But other times, you have toxic, jealous friends who don’t want to see you succeed - or people who do the bad transitive math of “Well, I don’t like hanging out with this person, so you shouldn’t want to hang out with this person.”

If someone’s trying to undermine your relationship for selfish reasons, that’s the person you need to drop. Because they’re not supporting you - they’re shaping you to be convenient for them. And recognizing when people see you as a tool to be used is a vital skill.

Hold Dialogues, Not Monologues.

I know I’m about to get into a crappy fight when I’m pacing around my room, practicing the big angry speech I’m gonna give to my wife when she gets back. And in my fantasy world, she’ll patiently listen to every one of my points, agree with me, and then beg for forgiveness.

Obviously, that never happens. So don’t bother.

Know When You’re Cheating.

Cheating isn’t just physical - it’s emotional, too. Any time you’re breaking agreements during a relationship, I’d argue that’s a form of cheating. Y’all can debate my word choice here - but regardless, keeping secrets so you can do something you know your partner would be hurt by is corrosive at best.

So you wanna know when you’re cheating? When you do something and your first thought is “I better make sure my partner never finds out about this.” And if that happens, the first thing you should do is make sure your partner finds out about that.

When All Seems Lost, Go See a Movie.

If you’re trapped in a bad patch where all you’re doing is going over the same hurts, do something that reminds you why you liked each other in the first place. See a movie, go to a concert, play a board game - remind yourself what you’re fighting for.

You Don’t Have To Understand It To Respect It.

I remember helping a trans friend of mine through a bad night. And they thanked me, because I really got what gender meant to them.

Reader, I did not.

I’m a cis guy who’s never felt an urge to be anything else. I can listen, read, and internalize as best I can, but the idea of knowing you are something other than who you were born as is alien to my experience.

But I do not have to feel that to respect it.

Likewise, Gini doesn’t experience the profound seasonal depressions I go through, but she sees the toll those two months a year have on me and takes them seriously. My mother’s never had a single same-sex attraction that I know of, but she sees the struggles gay people have finding love and supports them.

Now, “You don’t have to get it to respect it” has ramifications that go well beyond this essay - but let me focus on relationships to say that your partner may well have some things they have to deal with that you do not. Maybe they have ADHD, maybe they’ve got a chronic illness, maybe they’re an extrovert who desperately needs company or an introvert who desperately needs silence.

Refusing to accommodate someone’s needs unless their experience matches yours - or worse, accusing them of faking those needs for attention - is a monstrous thing to inflict on anyone, let alone someone you love. People are different, and you must understand that your experience is but a small facet of humanity as a whole.

They walk a different path; you may never step foot on it, but for God’s sake, buddy, at least read the map.

Lean Into Your Introvert Habits.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Gini and I recharge by razzing the tattoo artists on “Ink Masters.” That reality TV junk-food felt so trivial that it couldn’t be important… but really, we need a couple of days a week alone to bond over our outrage at this latest disastrous “MasterChef” ruling.

Whatever you need for downtime is whatever you need. Don’t let outside influences factor into it.

Like is More Important Than Love.

Like I said a few weeks ago: “How much you like someone and how much you love someone are separate scales. We all know someone we love but don't like (say, that relative who's become a frothing political maniac on Facebook), and someone we like but don't love….

“Without a sea of positive ‘likes,’ the relationship starts tumbling into the abyss of ‘quiet dread.’ Instead of being happy that the dishwasher has been taken care of, you groan silently as you realize that crap, it's up to you again. You brace yourself for Thanksgiving because you know your partner's gonna make that stupid, thoughtless joke that sets everyone on edge. You don't want to talk about that hobby with them because Christ, don't you know how much money that will cost?”

You wanna accentuate the “like” at every opportunity. And like I said in my first couple of times: anticipating what will make them happy and doing it proactively keeps that “like” meter topped off.

A Sense of Humor is a Secret Weapon.

I hope you can laugh at the worst things. Because they’re gonna happen. And if you can joke about it, no matter how bad, it helps you survive.

---