1000 Weeks Together
As you can hear in my conversation with Rich Roll, I run my athletic life with 1000-Day Pacing. My 1000-day anniversary (of deciding to get back in race shape) is coming in January 2025.
This month, June 2024, marks an anniversary of a different sort…
Meeting My Wife1
I thought I’d take the opportunity to pass along something I’ve learned about marriage and relationships.
With a first marriage that ended in divorce, I had a clear idea what I didn’t want to have happen in my second.
“Don’t get divorced, again” is a fear-based strategy. Fear-based but useful, particularly in motivating difficult changes connected to my identity.
In my case, as an elite athlete.
In your case, perhaps connected to career, or a self-image held at the time you met your spouse.
Much later, comfortable in my marriage, a better theme emerged.
TOGETHER
Build A Life, Together
Share A Life, Together
Enjoy A Life, Together
Figure Things Out, Together
Deal With Setbacks, Together
Together is the goal, the method and the benefit to the marriage.
It’s a simple filter.
Will this choice move us together?
Is this something we can share?
Looking back over the 1000 weeks, the benefits of together have arisen from truly awful situations.
Insolvencies.
Deaths.
Kids In The Hospital
20 years on, when my spouse asks… “What if?”
I need only answer, “We will deal with it, together.”
With this mindset, challenges become opportunities to strengthen our relationship. The relationship becoming a source of strength for the family system and, ultimately, our wider communities.
I’ll end with a story shared by a Methodist Minister who presided over a wedding we attended in Atlanta, GA. The photo (above) was taken at the wedding.
Marriage is like being inside a house.
That’s on fire.
With no doors.
And no windows.
And nobody is coming to save you.
You gotta figure it out, together.
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That attitude has served us well.
Technically, today is 1046 weeks since I met my wife but that title isn’t as catchy. Bear with me.