My life isn’t anything like what I imagined it would be when I was 20. It turned out so much better, and a big part of that is my wife and me choosing each other, no matter what.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. A few of the younger couples in my life are in the middle of figuring out what matters, and I keep wanting to tell them what I’ve learned.
What matters
Your house, car, and things don’t matter. Whether the house is clean doesn’t matter much either.
What matters is that God is at the center, your core values line up, and you have real chemistry.
That last one is easy to fake for a while. Early on, everything is exciting, and it’s hard to tell attraction and novelty apart from the real thing. A few years in, after the new wears off, you find out what you actually have.
Chemistry, the kind that lasts, is wanting to be around that person when nothing special is happening. It’s a long drive with no radio that doesn’t feel long. It’s looking for them across a crowded room just to share a look.
Ask yourself: Who’s the first person you want to tell when something great happens? Who do you want to tell when something terrible happens? Who do you want next to you on a boring Tuesday night?
If it’s the person you’re with, every time, that’s chemistry.
None of the rest of it matters that much.
The hard parts
A relationship is the combination of the good and the bad.
Most of the growth happens after the hard parts. I can look back on our marriage and point to the rough stretches, and almost every one of them is where we got closer.
Nobody wants to hear the story of an easy life, anyway. People want to hear about when it went wrong and how you got through it.
So believe in the thing you are together, and fight for it when it’s not working.
Over and over
There’s something a little wondrous about two imperfect people deciding to do whatever comes next, together, and choosing each other no matter what.
You do it on a Tuesday when you’re both tired, and again after the argument.
Choose each other, over and over.