Before you sit down to work on developing and introducing new systems to sweeten your relationship, a better first step is to start with the de-creation of existing systems that are not working well for you. In habit formation I’d argue there is an alternate “order of operations” (remember this from math class?) and the first step should always be subtraction.

Undoubtably your life is not a blank slate. You have a lot going on. You have a lot in motion. Think of your life as a creative endeavor, a work of art, a novel. All creative endeavors need enormous amounts of editing before they are really worth launching. 

There is an even more important rationale for starting with subtraction, which is this: often we are better at identifying what is not working than what is (or what will) work. Hindsight is 20/20. Predicting the future or what will work for you is much more precarious. So if you begin with a commitment to removing what is clearly toxic, harmful, or just not helpful, you will be more effective.  Subtraction also makes sense as the first step as it can help to create the necessary space for the new systems that you want to implement.

What should you subtract? This is a personal question. We can riff on the common answers couples give to this question but ultimately you need to decide what it is that if removed, would help your relationship. It may be that you are overcommitted. Are you working extra hours or extra jobs to pay for stuff that is itself really extra, unnecessary? Can your definition of what is necessary change? Or maybe you are not engaging in enough quality conversation when you are around your partner but you notice you both spend a lot of time looking down at your phones.  This lesson featured a picture of the kSafe, a “Time locking container,” a brilliant little device that you can stick your phone or remote or controller inside of and set it’s clock so that it makes the distracting device unavailable for whatever time you set it to.

We encourage you to find one significant thing to subtract and start with that. I like hyper vigilant types that jump all in but most people will experience overwhelm if they get too ambitious. This is somewhat comparable to trying to change the way you eat. As the former director of an urban farm, I was constantly hearing stories of people overhauling their diets. On rare occasions folks could make it work, but frequently the drastic changes were too much and people fell back on patterns that were familiar. A better approach to eating healthier would be to start with subtraction and to start by eliminating the worst player in nearly every American’s diet- drinks with sugar. Focusing on that one category, and being pretty fundamentalistic about it is a wiser strategy than trying to go through your cupboards and dump anything with sugar or high fructose corn syrup. We want to make our changes easier and more attractive so that we are not always relying on will power.

/ the exercise /

What would you like to subtract from your current life? Ask your spouse what they would like to subtract. Together think of systems to put in place to assist you in your efforts to subtract.

Lesson #33.

/ in a nutshell /

Co-create with your partner systems that help your relationship flourish.

Move to addition.

/ unpacked /

Once you’ve done the subtraction, let’s say you’ve committed to putting your phones into the kSafe every evening starting at 9pm, you can then do some addition. In your newfound space, maybe you and your partner make a ritual of exchanging back rubs while you discuss the day and then end with a glass of wine and a favorite snack while you day dream about an upcoming trip. Review James Clear’s Four Laws of Behavior Change (Cue-Craving-Response-Reward) which he sums nicely as “make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying.” In our pretend scenario, back rubs help alleviate or counteract any stress that arises as you review your day and then enjoying your wine and favorite snack while you day dream together serves as nice reward to reinforce your desire to be together and dream together.

/ the exercise /

Find time to discuss with your spouse what it is you would like to add into your life or relationship. Once again, don’t stop there, but design a system to build this into your schedule or routine.

Lesson #34.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself.

Practice your imperfect.

Emotional intimacy comes with vulnerability but it takes practice.

/ unpacked /

We crave emotional intimacy in our marriages because intimacy brings a sense of security to our fragile selves in this otherwise daunting and sometimes dangerous world. But intimacy isn’t always easy to achieve. Intimacy requires vulnerability, or opening up about ourselves in ways that reveal we don’t have it all together.

All of our desires come packaged with fears. Every desire has an underbelly, which is the potential for that desire to go unmet, to be thwarted, or maybe for the opposite scenario to play out. Sharing our desires is a part of being vulnerable because we are putting what we want out there into the world and there is no guarantee that what we want will come to pass. However, if we take this one step further, and learn to share our fears, our anxieties, our imperfections, and even our weaknesses, we will be doing ourselves and everyone else around us a favor. The reason is simple: we will be normalizing our fears and imperfections. This is not to say we are grateful for them or want them to stick around. But when we normalize something we take away the stigma that so often leads to further problems. Deeper problems. Compounded problems. When we fail to normalize our imperfections we are inadvertently nursing an entire set of additional problems. Problems like: hiding, avoidance, shame, self-justification, blaming, despair, or self-righteousness. Being vulnerable is publicly acknowledging your fears. It is admitting you are not perfect. If certain things don’t go your way, you will be hurt. The perfect person may remain unfazed, calm, and in control. The perfect person knows how to respond in wisdom and generosity in all situations. The perfect person has their shit together and knows how to help anyone and everyone around them when their family and friends falter. But in reality no such person exists. Whenever you are able to rehearse your imperfections, share your fears, and admit your weaknesses to your spouse, you are being vulnerable, and that vulnerability makes you more human and more relatable. Too often we fall for the lie that those around us need us to be strong. More often those around us need us just to be humble and open. Because when we are humble and open our pain and fears help those around us cope with their pain and fears. We come to see that we are not alone.

So practicing your imperfect does not mean intentionally doing stuff you know is wrong or harmful. It means practice sharing your imperfections with those you love in the right context to build trust and create a climate for healthy growth.

I want to be clear, we are not praising our imperfections. Nor are we ignoring them or going forward in resignation. We are learning how to consistently acknowledge them to those nearest to us instead of masking them. At this point you might be thinking “easier said than done.” Or, “where do we get the courage to do this?” Glad you asked.

Different people have different answers. I’ll share three common responses, two of which I believe have merit and one I think will fail you.

First, people of faith may cite that they gain the strength to be vulnerable because they believe they are loved by God by sheer grace. The heart of the Christian faith is God becoming vulnerable in the person and work of Jesus Christ, not because God had to, but because God wanted to reconcile his relationship with the creatures he made. If you believe there is a God who loves you just because he loves you-in other words the love has no reason (this is what the term agape love in the New Testament denotes) then there is no way for you to lose God’s love and approval. There is no reason to hide your imperfection and weakness. As the Scripture says, “perfect love casts out fear.”

Second, others rationalize that since we can definitively argue that everyone is imperfect in their own ways, logic would tell us that the only rational way to interact with each other is to treat each other as equals with a balanced mixture of grace, bemusement, and horror. In other words, this case for vulnerability looks out at the world empirically and finds everyone has their issues. And if everyone has their own issues, it doesn’t make sense that you should be scared or ashamed of yours. The sane thing to do is to contextualize your imperfections and see that you are more normal than you think.

Third, and unfortunately the most popular approach, is a kind of cheap reassurance that what we need is to see ourselves as worthy of love. On the surface this sounds noble and right. But psychologically this approach is a house of cards. The reasoning goes like this: when we believe we are worthy of love we will have the courage to be vulnerable because no matter what others think of us when we share our fears and faults, we can trust in that belief that we are special and worthy. Unlike the first two approaches, it denies that our identity is largely built upon those outside of us and instead insists that we can conjure up our meaning and worth on our own. This approach is intrinsically individualistic. It may be tenable in a philosophical textbook, but in real life those of us who are honest come to an experiential understanding that we can’t escape our need for love and approval from others, from those outside of us. Think back to Ubuntu. The first two approaches to vulnerability acknowledge that the ability to be vulnerable is empowered by the reality of community, whereas this last approach disregards outside voices in a vain attempt to establish a superior a priori value. Another part of the built-in problem of this last approach is that if we are telling ourselves that we are worthy of love it is counter-productive to that narrative to share our imperfections and weaknesses. How do we reconcile what it is that is worthy of love in us while we are sharing what is less than flattering about us? It gets messy and bipolar quick. It also lends itself nicely to a kind of self-justification where there is nothing about us that ought to change.

It takes greater courage to face the possibility that perhaps we are not inherently worthy of love. It may be the ultimate act of vulnerability. Yet, if we dare to do this, in a twist of irony, we open ourselves up to being genuinely loved.

/ the exercise /

In a journal entry take the time to reflect on the person you feel safest around. Why do you feel safe around this person?

Lesson #35.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself.

Practice your imperfect.

Emotional intimacy comes with vulnerability but it takes practice.

/ unpacked /

What does this vulnerability look like in practice? Let’s pretend you have a teenage son. You and your spouse both know yourselves to be in the category of parents of who have tried hard to love on their children and you both feel as if you have done a better-than-average job. Nevertheless, parenting is not for the faint of heart and each child miraculously presents problems for which no book seems to offer a solution. Your wonderful son, who you still dearly love, has taken to not only making bad jokes around the clock which make you grit your teeth, but an array of other behaviors which can be summed up as insubordinate.

One spouse believes this new trend needs to be squashed quickly with more structure and compliance, but the other feels that more space for independence is necessary. This scenario, like countless others, calls for vulnerability. Vulnerability is more than just sharing your thoughts or desires on the subject at hand- though it is certainly that. Vulnerability will be a practice of your imperfect, so it will call on you to confess the fears lying underneath your desires. For example, one spouse may be wanting more compliance not just to create a more orderly environment in the house, but also out of a fear that if the son is permitted to get away with whatever he wants he will be building habits that will harm him later in life. The other spouse may also want more order or less conflict in the house and feel that the current confrontations with the teenager are only generating more friction. This spouse may fear that forcing compliance will foster inner resentment and strain the parent-child relationship further.  Neither spouse is wrong and opening up and sharing your fears doesn’t resolve the issue of how to interact with your teenager. However, practicing your imperfections, sharing your deeper fears, invites greater sympathy and understanding. It often reduces the feelings of opposition and superiority that can arise in a relational conflict.

/ the exercise /

Practice being vulnerable with your spouse by sharing a fear you have.

Lesson #36.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself.

Practice your imperfect.

Emotional intimacy comes with vulnerability but it takes practice.

/ unpacked /

Brene Brown has a wealth of down to earth relational knowledge. Perhaps my favorite in regards to marriage came from a podcast with Tim Ferriss. She and Tim talked about the importance of checking in with your partner regularly. A practice of being vulnerable. One strategy they mentioned was just sharing:

1)    What is working well. What you feel like you are doing well. What you feel like your spouse is doing well.

2)    In this past week I really appreciated this…

3)    I would like more of…

Brene Brown slams the idea that marriage should be a 50/50 partnership. Instead, she argues for what her and her husband call the 80/20. What this means is that you rate yourself on a scale ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 meaning that you are doing really well, your energy and capacity for patience, kindness, and investment is at its max or perfect state, and a 0 indicating that you have nothing in your tank, you are emotionally bankrupt, exhausted, spent, and unable to contribute in the ways you want to. It is key that you are rating your energy and ability to show up because you have the inside scoop on yourself. But you each share what percentage you are at. And then here is how it works. If your combined total is anything less than 100, you stop what you are doing and sit down at the table and figure out a “plan of kindness towards each other.”

If one partner is at a 20  and the other is an 80, the 80 person is sharing that they can cover the other person because they have sufficient reserves left in the tank. But there are times when life is hard for both partners and this checking in is designed to recognize that when both partners are under stress and feel depleted that is often a precursor to marital fights. By checking in you recognize the tension and exhaustion in the room and address the real underlying issues instead of defaulting into cheap shots at the one you love.

Brown said marriage is not 50/50, a partnership works when you can carry their 20 or they can carry your 30. And when you both just have 20 you have a plan so you don’t hurt each other.  You sit down and figure out what you can take off the table to give yourselves grace. Maybe you don’t try to cook a great dinner that night, but order-in, or you cancel a meeting or outing and replace it with something that will fortify your spirit. And the process of having this conversation with each other helps to bring your awareness of the other person’s needs to the forefront and encourages us to treat each other with greater empathy and generosity. A couple days later you can check in again and if you are still not at a combined 100, you strategize again, skip a kid’s sports practice, make room for a hot bath and your favorite music, or you name what exactly it is that you need.

We think another incredible advantage of doing this kind of “check in” with your spouse is that over time you will better recognize patterns. For example, it may become clear that one partner is consistently returning home depleted. Eventually, you can together discern that some larger structural change, a change in one or more of your systems (a job, routine, sleep patterns, commitments, etc) should be explored.

/ the exercise /

Schedule a time this week to try these “checking in” practices.

Lesson #37.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself.

Passion has a second stage.

You just need to know the right exercises.

What you need is: A Rigorous Training Program for the Imagination

Lessons 37, 38 and 39 are for couples that want to pursue not just emotional intimacy in their marriage, but more sexual attraction and romance. Not all couples want erotic desire to be a component of their marital relationship, and that is totally fine! But for those that do wish to continue to pursue physical passion past the early stages of a marriage the following lessons lay out strategies to invigorate eros over the duration of a marriage.

/ unpacked /

Esther Perel wrote:

If we are to maintain desire with one person over time we must be able to bring a sense of the unknown into a familiar space. In the words of Proust, ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.’

The Tenets of Sustained Passion…

Can we want what we already have? We believe not only that you can, but that learning how is the path to a life of contentment. Yet we are not going to pretend that this is easy.

The first tenet we’ll have to come to terms with is this: the “falling-in-love-passion” we experience at the beginning of a relationship is not sustainable. A marriage that wants to have passion over the long haul must believe that there can be a stage two to passion.

What is the second stage of passion? It is very, very, very different from the first. The first is almost involuntary and largely subconscious, you feel lost in love. The second is totally voluntary and conscious. In fact, you will be amazed at how intentional you have to be. Whereas the first time around it felt like an invisible hand was guiding you together, in the second stage it may feel like you have a tow strap wrapped around your waist and you are having to drag a car without wheels down a gravel road. There is an inertia that needs to be overcome to achieve Stage Two of passion. This inertia leads us into our second tenet:

Stage 2 of passion eros is sustained by communicating to our partner what it is that turns us on. Sorry, there isn’t a way around this. As you progress in your marriage you come to realize that your partner isn’t going to figure you out or read your mind and meet your desires by intuition. Eros evolves, and in stage two what becomes sexy is each partner showing up, each partner being willing to invest in what makes the other happy. And the way this happens is through clearly communicating what incites your passion (which, of course, you can only do if you have first taken the time to understand yourself and what it is you really desire- which was the first movement in this series of lessons). It feels awkward at first and unromantic, but remember that you are seeking Romance 2.0 now. The older version is passe.  Once again, communication is key. We’d argue that actually scheduling in these talks is super helpful precisely because we have been conditioned to feel awkward about bringing these matters up in conversation. Hack yourself.

Onto the third tenet:

Knowing what brings your partner erotic excitement is half the battle and that comes via hard conversations. The other half is following through, showing up, scheduling, planning. Making this aspect of your relationship a priority (or at least to the degree that both of you want it to be). This is again a mark of Stage Two of passion that is almost the opposite of the first stage of infatuation. Early on, everything seemed to happen spontaneously. I love spontaneous. It is okay to grieve the loss of spontaneity as you go about adulting. But the reality for marriage is that you can’t trust the spontaneous. You need to build the passion into the schedule, put it on the calendar. But this doesn’t mean that what you do to meet each other’s desires has to stagnate or become routine. Quite the opposite. Since a part of the erotic is an experience of the unknown, of an adventure and the new, couples keen on eros will likely seek to enjoy their passionate time together in new ways and new places. But this leads us to a common complaint against monogamy- sex with the same person doesn’t scratch that erotic itch for the new. Let’s unpack this a bit here.

We are not going to argue that this complaint doesn’t carry some validity. But we totally believe monogamy is the wisest of all arrangements and here is why: (1) the alternatives are over-hyped and short-sighted. Like a mosquito bite, you scratch that itch and it will likely just itch all the more and you keep scratching until you are bleeding.  (2) If couples learned to seek the “new” not in a new person but in the countless other ways that “new” can be introduced, they might find that sex stays very interesting.  In other words, looking for the “new” in a new partner is the lazy route. Or maybe it is a route for people who completely lack imagination. (3) We can also level a challenge to the very claim that sex with the same person gets dull because of the “sameness” of the person involved. As Esther Perel wisely pointed out, it is an illusion to think we as people stay the same or that we ever really come to fully know the person sleeping next to us. In other words, sex will stay much more interesting to the degree you learn to perceive the actual distance that exists between you and your partner. The erotic inhabits those territories of the unknown and so when you learn to hone in on the gap between you and your partner the erotic will be animated. Which leads to our fourth tenet:

Practicing lust for our spouses is the most important exercise we can do to build and maintain passion in a marriage. (Again, we will repeat, not everyone is concerned to maintain passion in a marriage, and that is totally fine, but if you are…) Lust is a craving of the mind and especially the imagination, and the art of lusting after your spouse is the psychological trick to recreating a distance between you and your spouse that otherwise collapses as your emotional intimacy grows. And as Perel rightly argued, it is that distance, that synapse, that drives the erotic desire. Here is why this works. When you are lusting you are experiencing second hand, you are imagining what something is or could be, but you are not actually partaking. In other words, you are wanting something you don’t technically “have” in that moment. Remember the driving question- “Can we want something we already have?” When we fantasize about our spouse, we are in real time wanting someone that is not actually in our arms. And if you learn to do this regularly you will discover that no matter how often you get together it will feel like not enough, because by comparison you are spending considerably more of your waking hours in a state of “apartness” which you will be experiencing as a state of unmet desire. This will be your fuel.  

Imaginative lust may look different for women than it does for men. Often times for men lust is driven by a physical attribute of the spouse, whereas with women it can be a more complex set of factors. We’ll provide two examples just to flesh this out a bit. But obviously, the thing that drives your lust will be unique to you and so uncovering what that is for you will be necessary if you are going to apply these tenets.

/ the exercise /

Have that awkward conversation about what it is that turns you on. Negotiate. Plan. Schedule your dates.

Lesson #38.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself:.

Passion has a second stage.

You just need to know the right exercises.

What you need is: A Rigorous Training Program for the Imagination

/ unpacked /

Example 1

What attribute do you most desire about your partner?  Physical attributes are part of the equation of eros, but we can be turned on by much more than beautiful eyes. It may be their sassiness, their dancing, their imagination, their style, or simply the fact that he or she is willing to put in the effort. This is especially the case once you have learned to practice communicating what it is that instigates your passion.

If you are able to realize how your passion increases when your partner cares and tries and shows up, please learn to flip this script on yourself, realizing you have the responsibility to help turn your partner on.  The one thing you don’t want to do though is spend time evaluating how hard your partner is trying in comparison to you- that will lead to a dead end. We naturally make these comparisons all the time, so the hack is to turn off the comparisons and to learn to focus on yourself, or on what is already present in your spouse that you can appreciate, that you can use to spike your desire.

Perhaps what kindles your sexual drive is a combination of factors, such as seeing your husband laugh and play tenderly with the kids and (though these two things seem disparate) having a clean and attractive bedroom. For some reason you’ve found that when these two conditions are met, that is when arousal is highest. If these conditions are articulated to the husband the husband can play an active role in helping his spouse turn her passion on. But as for the wife, her role is to tend to her imagination. If these are the conditions that drive passion, she will want to imagine these conditions to generate that longing, that gap that fuels desire. This will be her fantasy that will prime the pump.

/ the exercise /

Take time to journal about the things that most turn you on.

Lesson #39.

/ in a nutshell /

Hack yourself.

Passion has a second stage.

You just need to know the right exercises.

What you need is: A Rigorous Training Program for the Imagination

/ unpacked /

Example 2:

One heuristic to keep in mind is that the fantasy you construct around your spouse needs to be loosely tethered to reality. The beauty of the imagination is that it knows no bounds, but that can also be its curse. What you want is to employ it judiciously. Here is an example. Say your spouse has a nice butt. It’s not too small. It’s not as big as you’d like it be, but it is a source of pleasure to you. As you have learned that the key to passion in stage 2 is good and clear communication, it comes up that you love her butt and you feel embolden to ask if she’d be willing to eat some more peanut butter M&Ms and do hip thrusts to increase that booty from 38” circumference to 42” and maybe achieving thicker thighs as a bonus. Note that you don’t ask or expect her to get her butt up to 56”-as much as that would be even more awesome to you- because you want your imagination to be tethered to her and realistically she has a given set of genes that dictate how big of booty is possible. Your imagination training program now is to appreciate the butt she has, to be incredibly grateful it is 38” and not 32”, and to think the thoughts that will generate lust and appreciation for what she already has (that could be particular thongs or twerking or whatever- you get the picture). And if through clear communication she agrees to work on adding a few inches, this can be a huge boost psychologically. If we can learn to receive such suggestions and act on them we not only become sexier to our partner in the way they articulated turns them on, but the very fact that we took them seriously and followed through demonstrates something deeper- our love for them and willingness to go the extra mile- and this interjects a special attractive power of its own. The win is doubled. A couple caveats at this point. First, there has to be genuine buy-in from both partners, if one spouse feels truly uncomfortable or does something begrudgingly it would be better if they didn’t do it all. Second, many of us have taken upon ourselves a public persona that acts as if it doesn’t care about physical appearance. None of us wants to be like that guy who is “trying too hard.”  In many circles “trying” at all (to care about or improve your appearance) means you must have low self-esteem and body image issues. I sometimes wonder how many people are intentionally not trying as just another way to fit in and avoid being judged. It would be so much better if we all got to the place where we could all just admit that we do care what others think about us- and probably too much- and we could give each other grace in our collective insecurity. A better approach might be to let ourselves care but to focus on looking our best for our spouse versus those present at an office meeting. Direct that energy towards the person who matters the most. Seek their opinion and approval.

/ the exercise /

Take time to listen to what turns your spouse on.

Lesson #40.

/ in a nutshell /

Make sure some of your systems have purpose built into them.

Make sure some of your systems have some fun built into them.

/ unpacked /

Make sure some of your systems have purpose built into them.

Your shared purpose may evolve and change during different seasons of the life and marriage, but finding shared purpose is hugely indicative of marital happiness.  Child rearing is a common one, but don’t let that become the sole purpose or you’ll be left feeling empty when they leave the house. We know a million people have said that and maybe it sounds cliché now, but there is a reason it keeps getting repeated, it’s because people falling into this same trap. Neglecting children to pursue a career or other ambitions is clearly selfish and harmful, but making children the center of everything all the time isn’t doing anyone a favor either. Figure out what a healthy balance looks like for your family.

Make sure some of your systems have some fun built into them.

Balance. Once again. Don’t seek perfect balance because there is no such thing. But pay heed to the creation of some balance. Life can be heavy because it is heavy. Adulting is no joke. But bringing some humor and learning to still find time to play is so necessary!  We’ll return to this in a future lesson.

/ the exercise /

Name not just one, but multiple purposes your marriage serves. What do you both care about and what are you doing together that matters?

Transitioning into the fourth movement: Community Integrator

Lesson #41.

/ in a nutshell /

Remember that it takes a village not just to raise a child, but to support a healthy marriage.

/ unpacked /

In countless ways the world has become more interconnected than ever before. It comes as a tragic irony then that at the same time people are experiencing more isolation and loneliness than ever before.

/ the exercise /  

Spend some time evaluating how integrated your on-line community is with your in-person community. Compare the support you get from each.

Lesson #42.

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Ask yourself: “are our friends and family helping our marriage thrive?” (And conversely, is our marriage a force for good in their lives?)

/ unpacked /

As mentioned earlier, sometimes the quickest way to make a big impact on your life is to subtract a habit, an influence, a person, or situation from the equation. Everyone is toxic in their own way and everyone needs grace. The thing is, we do ourselves and others a favor when we come to learn where we are called to give grace and where we are called to move on and let someone else dispense that grace.

Often times we fall into particular behavioral patterns around particular people. We can be as much to blame as the other person. But if we know we are too weak to get out of that rut, then maybe the wisest way forward is to remove yourself from that relationship. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you know you are likely to make a bad choice or continue a bad habit or nurture a side of your character you ultimately don’t want to nurture. This is not easy, but there are times when we should end friendships or acquaintances in order to help us be better human beings and better spouses.

There are likely many folks who don’t feel they have any toxic friendships but perhaps have so many shallow friendships that their calendars are bursting at the seams. Maybe your problem is that you are spread too thin, taking on too many relationships and the result is that you can’t invest enough quality time in the ones that matter most. This too can be a detriment in our efforts to build a healthy marriage. Consider your situation.

/ the exercise /

Ask yourself: “are our friends and family helping our marriage thrive?” (And conversely, is our marriage a force for good in their lives?)

Lesson #43.

/ in a nutshell /

Have healthy friendships that fulfill some relational needs in ways that your spouse can’t.

/ unpacked /

In his book The Four Loves, CS Lewis has this brilliant section on friendship. He shares how friendship comes about when we meet people who share a similar appreciation for something in this world. We discover a common insight, interest or taste and we think “What? You too? I thought I was the only one?” While a spouse is ideally your best friend, a spouse is also a lover and that relationship has dynamics that are quite different from those of a friendship. Lewis writes:

“Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important. Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but “A’s part in C,” while C loses not only A but “A’s part in B.” In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald…Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend.”

When we lived in Holland we had 17 housemates over the course of 12 years. One of the truly beautiful things about this was that diverse parts of us, interests that we as a couple didn’t perhaps share- found outlets for expression and affirmation amongst these housemates through the friendships that naturally arose out of proximity. We obviously had more in common with some housemates than others, but the range of their interests permitted fuller expressions or versions of ourselves to be experienced and lived. We realize that in an unhealthy marriage the presence of housemates does the carry the potential to exacerbate the situation and further a divide, but if your marriage is solid we found these relationships to relieve some of the pressure our modern society puts on marriage. As a society we too often act like your marriage partner has to be this perfect fit, someone who gets you 100% all of the time. Someone who shares all your interests and passions. And we believe that is not only ridiculous but impossible. Other friendships are such a gift because they scratch our itch to be around people who love the things we love, who share some of our weird obsessions, who like the same music or find joy playing the same sport.

Two further thoughts on this matter. First, studies suggest that we are in a friendship recession. We talked about that in an earlier lesson. Studies also report that women tend to be better at maintaining these types of friendships than men. We want to pause here and lament all this. We believe this trend is tragic for all of us, as individuals, and as couples. We might not necessarily “need” friends, but life is so much richer with them.

Second, not only are we of the belief that Americans need more friends, but we would go much farther and argue that we need committed friendships. Wesley Hill, a celibate gay Christian, wrote a phenomenal book titled “Spiritual friendship” that reveals the deeply problematic and underdeveloped notions of friendship that dominate our culture.

For instance, he argues that as a culture we reserve deep levels of commitment only for romantic love and in doing so we have undermined and limited the significance of  friendships in our lives. Friendships could be esteemed higher and we could create levels of more explicit commitment to them, we could even prioritize dear friends over careers, opting to stay in one location because community trumps an increase in status and a higher paying job. Imagine what life would be like if we could learn to declare our friendships publicly? Again, we are suggesting that many of our cultural narratives be questioned.

/ the exercise /

Read Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, by Vivek H. Murthy, MD (US Surgeon General)

Or, for people in faith traditions, read Spiritual Friendship, by Wesley Hill

Lesson #44.

/ in a nutshell /

Have couples friends too.

/ unpacked /

This is not an either/or, but a both/and.

You want to have friends that speak to your idiosyncrasies and interests. You want to have a marriage where you bless your spouse to hang out with her friends and she permits you to hang out with your friends. But you also want other couples that both of you enjoy being around. Couples friends. Couples you both know and like.

Why?

A marriage relationship is complex and if we go at it alone and isolated, we are more likely to fall into a distorted perspective of our own relationship. We generally benefit from seeing how other couples behave around each other. We can benefit from hearing their struggles and witnessing their successes. We realize that while yes, my partner is difficult in this and that way, if I would have married someone else I would have an entire different set of problems. When we spend enough time around other couples we gain perspective. We realize no one is immune to the stress of marriaging. Equally important, if the relationships gain any depth, you start to become more vulnerable with each other. You grant others more access. You become more transparent. Or perhaps you are just around each other so much that you accidently reveal more of your true self, and in the process these friends start to really know you and know how you and your spouse interact. When we become closer with other couples we open ourselves and our marriage relationship up to receive helpful feedback and counsel. When we are not hiding things, when they are brought out into the open, then there is the real possibility that those who love us may provide support.

/ the exercise /

Read The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker

Lesson #45.

/ in a nutshell /

Don’t raise your children alone.  We all need help.

/ unpacked /

If you have children, you know that much of your marital relationship revolves around these needy human beings. Whenever I talk to young married couples who don’t have children I feel like I just have to give this counsel, even though if someone would have given it to me it would not have made a difference because there are things we can’t know until we have experienced them. Having children is definitely one of those things. I tell these young couples: 1st…The moment you have a child, know that you have entered an 18 year prison sentence. You have lost any remaining freedom for what will likely be your busiest season of life…. (I pause here and look at them with my most serious face to convey a sense of fear and trembling)…Don’t enter this lightly, I advise. Then I say this, 2nd… There is no way to be totally “ready” to have children and they don’t come with an instruction manual, nevertheless, if you feel called to have children, it is absolutely the truth that you won’t regret it and that these very same people who frustrate you and enslave you will also steal your heart. Even before they can say they love you, you will be willing to die for them.

While I realize there are exceptions, rare parents who lack the parental instinct, the reality for most people is that your children occupy a special place in your heart. It will be easier to be patient with and demonstrate a self-less love towards your child than it will be to give the same love towards your spouse. As a parent you do all kinds of loving things for your children regardless of their behavior. You practice a beautiful kind of self-giving love. And what most of us don’t realize is that the more we are loving towards someone, the more we tend to feel loving towards that person. With our spouse we tend to think “you are a grown up, act like one.” We don’t give our spouse much grace. We harbor expectations. Our affection is often conditional. This is something to be aware of and guard against. We guard against this when we learn how necessary grace and forgiveness is to our marriage. And we guard against this when chose to intentionally invest in our marriage because we know that loving our spouse may not come as natural as loving our children.

While there are cultural (or sub-cultures) exceptions to this trend, across the United States many family units are no longer organized around the parents’ careers but around what is best for the children. We have rightfully demonized that success-driven parent who puts their career above their child but often the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Now we are more prone to obsess about giving our child every opportunity to succeed and experience life that we can’t say no to a traveling soccer team or a third extracurricular activity. It is like our children are experiencing our FOMO vicariously.

Hopefully we’ll achieve some balance in the future. Hopefully we can move beyond parent-centered and child-centered homes to homes that balance the welfare of everyone under the roof. Families where adults put each other and their children above the accumulation of money and status, where they are invested in their marriage for the long haul while carving out sufficient time to sow affection into the lives of their children. In this scenario children receive plenty of attention but can witness that their parents also have a life and a loving relationship of their own. Children get to see firsthand what it looks like for adults to invest in each other and put the work into a relationship. When the children leave the home, the parents relationship doesn’t dissolve, it evolves into its next season. This is a tough balancing act. We all fail. But are we willing to keep striving for this?

In the past parents had the support of grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors and friends in the rearing of children. Imagine a live-in babysitter. Sound Beverly Hills boujee? Well, around the clock childcare continues to be a reality for people world-wide below the poverty line who come from collectivist, strong-group societies. There are still many people who live together  in extended family units or in tribal structures that share the supervision and instruction of children. While most people in the West consider this a  backwards way of living it may someday turn out to be considered the most progressive way forward. But we are not going to argue for that here. It is a huge conversation and there are pros and cons on each side. We are inserting it into the conversation here because although we are white westerners who hail from individualistic family structures, we have been privileged to witness neighbors from other cultures do this family thing very differently and really opened our eyes. There are other ways to live this life. So we simply invite you to consider that between the these two extremes- the western, individualistic model of parenting alone, and the eastern, traditional model of a village raising a child- there lies a continuum. And what would it look like to become more dependent on family and friends in the raising of your children?

/ the exercise /

What are ways you can enlist the help of others to raise your children and what are ways you can help other parents raise their children?

For Christians:

Read When the Church was a Family, by Joseph Hellerman and Called to Community: the life Jesus wants for his people

Lesson #46.

/ in a nutshell /

Keep playing. Or, relearn how to play.

/ unpacked /

This is an email we crafted and sent out to a group of friends. If this is inspiring or helpful feel free to steal it or adapt it for your own purposes. Copy & paste 

Good evening! 

Melissa and I are not going through a midlife crisis, but we have engaged in a whole lot of mid-life reflection over this past year. We had a surfeit of time last winter which only further stimulated our desire to subtract more busyness from our lives in order to open up more time for that which we find life-giving.

Lifestyle design sounds and can be boujee and we confess to digesting too much Tim Ferriss this past year. Nevertheless, it seems like obvious wisdom to align what you are doing in life with what you believe in and therefore want to be doing. With this in mind we have set up a number of systems or habits that prioritize time with our children, time with each other (weekly date nights), time with the body of Christ, time to exercise, time in Scripture, time that is completely unscheduled and open, etc. Simplifying life is not a simple endeavor, and there remains much that still feels like meaningless busy work. However, we continue to be amazed by how much of the busyness can be taken off the table if we are courageous enough to challenge society’s script for our lives. That is a separate conversation from this letter but a topic we are budding evangelists for.

This letter is the result of Melissa and I asking ourselves, what do we most want to add to our lives in this season of life? We came up with two things. One of which is the subject of this letter, which is “fun.” More specifically, play.

For those of you who know Jon and Necia, you know they quite publicly have “Work hard, Play hard” as their mantra and do a good job of living into that. Melissa and I are not sure that we have as much energy as they do and we keep saying our mantra would be “work hard, rest hard, play hard.”  The first we have always been great at, the second we are now doing quite well, but the third remains an area for growth. We are taking up some personal hobbies but Melissa and I both are the types that experience the most fun in a group setting. So we got to brainstorming…how do we find a group of adults who just want to have more fun? This seemed like an easy question at first glance, but the more we thought about it we realized that adults don’t engage in much that is playful. The demands of adulting naturally atrophy our imaginations and play muscles.

There is of course more to the question. For starters, people have very different ideas of what constitutes fun. Fun could be retiring every evening to Netflix or some alcohol. Maybe it is gaming or a sport. The possibilities are endless. When Melissa and I contemplated this more we came to realize that what we desired was not so much a particular activity that we deemed “fun,” as much as a posture and pursuit of doing new things to stretch ourselves and inject some playful mystery and novelty into life. New fun, new adventures, maybe some travel. What I mean by that is that we didn’t just want to join a swing dance club, we want to try all kinds of new things. Things we wouldn’t normally do- like bubble football, a paint and sip class, a virtual gaming night, a Halloween costume party, chartering a sail boat, etc.

Then we started having conversations about who would do this kind of stuff with us and how would we go about organizing it. Thankfully we had just read the perfect pair of books to answer these questions- The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker  and  The Power of Fun: How to feel alive again, by Catherine Price. From these books we felt assured that structure is a must. If we sat back and wished for a group of like-minded folks to organically or magically appear we could be waiting for a long time. Life is chaotic for people. We live in a culture where married people, especially married people with children, almost never do things spontaneously. For better or worse, play, like everything else, needs to be put on the calendar for it to come to pass.

So this is the invitation:

Would you like to join a club to keep yourself accountable to playing more? We read that when naming events or clubs that specificity is helpful, so how is this for the name- “Married couples needing regular doses of fun club”?

Some potential club rules…

1.    I will bring my spirit of adventure with me, ready to try new things, and contribute to a positive group energy even amidst a diversity of opinions.

2.    We will come to at least 8 of the 11 yearly outings. Outings will take place on the ______ (TBD) of each month, unless otherwise determined.

3.    I will turn my phone off and be present.

4.    I will lean into the principles of two cornerstone books for this group: The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker  &  The Power of Fun: How to feel alive again, by Catherine Price.

Now the sticky and awkward part. We made a couple of lists of friends to invite. Congratulations, you all were on our first list J. Priya Parker recommends a group size of roughly 12 so we are hoping there will be 5 couples who feel a similar ache and drive to schedule in more play. If we can’t get 5 from our first list we’ll start reaching out to the second. The main thing we want to say though is that there is absolutely no pressure whatsoever to join and we will in no way feel hurt if you decline. The very last thing we want is to put any pressure on anyone to join something that is going to add more stress or busyness to life. What is life-giving to one couple may be a burden to another. Or maybe the timing isn’t right for you. All of our circumstances are different, so we don’t pretend to know what would be healthy for any of you. This is merely an invitation. If it doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

When we started a book club in 2017 we invited some of our closest friends and most of them couldn’t commit and instead a hodgepodge of other friends / acquaintances ended up coming. Looking back I wouldn’t trade out these people for the world- it was the perfect group and it continues on to this day and we love it! We trust people to discern for themselves what makes the most sense and God has a way of orchestrating it from there. That all being said, we didn’t put a million people on this list because realistically this kind of group would fail if it was too large. There are many friends we didn’t send this out to and that was difficult but logistically unavoidable. So we ask for your discretion and we hope we won’t be offending anyone. Another thing to note, we love single people and in so many ways seek to embody a radical inclusiveness, yet we acknowledge that this space, this group, is serving a different purpose. We’ve wrestled with this too, but in the end feel that there can be times and places for those in similar stages and circumstances to gather with intentionality and that is okay.

Talk this over with your spouse and let us know your thoughts by October 5th.  We have a few more thoughts on how to democratically determine the groups’ outings and adventures but this is already a crazy long email. And please do note, we are very, very open to suggestions and your brainstorming. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Cheers!

/ the exercise /

Do you feel like you have enough places and spaces for play in your life? Discuss this with your spouse. If you desire more fun, make a plan to implement it!

Lesson #47.

/ in a nutshell /

Find your “third spaces” – places beyond work and home where we interact freely and casually in our communities.

/ unpacked /

You have probably heard about the “blue zones,” a handful of places in the world renowned for how long their residents live. When researchers tried to isolate what was unique among these people that accounted for their long life several things surfaced. Interestingly, chief among these was their social connection. These people had a sense of belonging and purpose. They got out and did things with others. They had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Even more important than a healthy diet was healthy amount of human interaction.

Why is this being brought up in curriculum on marriage? Your involvement in a community matters. Social integration is a predictor not just of physical heath, but mental and emotional health. And you want to bring the healthiest version of yourself possible into your marriage. So we are circling back to where we started, acknowledging that I am who I am because of who we are.

/ the exercise /

Check out the TED talk “The secret to living longer may be your social life” by Susan Pinker 

Lesson #48.

/ in a nutshell /

Seek love over money, status, career, and achievements.

/ unpacked /

This is unbelievably cliché. So why even say it? We repeat it here because despite the tidal wave of novels and films and self-help publications all screaming it, we seem to have a propensity to get our priorities mixed up. Knowing this about ourselves, there are some messages that we need continual reminders of.  This is one of those messages.

It may be helpful to expand our understanding of wealth. Ethan Roland developed a more holistic model for understanding wealth in the service of building resilience. He described 8 forms of capital: intellectual, spiritual, social, material, financial, living, cultural, and experiential. He didn’t put them into a hierarchy, and as a result we feel like it serves as a corrective for our near exclusive obsession with financial capital. Love is a form of wealth that is spiritual, social, living and experiential. To love and to be loved is a kind of profound wealth giving us more access into realizing our purpose than any amount of money.

/ the exercise /

Spend 10 minutes contemplating your funeral. Write down what you hope people will say.

Lesson #49.

/ in a nutshell /

Grace is the glue that holds the good life together.

/ unpacked /

What makes up the good life? Is it life being good to you? Is it you being good to life? Is it some combination of these?

Throughout this curriculum we have encouraged you to work this question out. You may come to a very different answer than us, or a different answer from the one your parents believed. What you don’t want is to never ask the question or seek for answers.

Find a formula that makes sense to you. Writer Anne Lamott devised a simple sentence to capture what she felt were the 3 truths of our existence- “that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.” For me, seeing the world through the lens of paradox is a necessity. What is it for you?

Whatever it is, we hope you come to experience grace. We believe in striving for excellence, in self-knowledge that leads to self-improvement, in becoming the best version of yourself for not only yourself, but for your spouse and others. But we all have weaknesses. Even worse, we all have a shadow side. Even if the good life arrives at our front door step we will be prone to mess it up. In the end grace is what is necessary to hold the good life together. Grace for each other. Grace for ourselves.

/ the exercise /

Make grace not just a part of your vocabulary and outlook on life, but the glue that holds life together.

Lesson #50.

/ in a nutshell /

Marriaging is a journey. Enjoy the journey.

/ unpacked /

The end game is the present moment.

Yes, it is also the future…the vision of you and your spouse huddled together in tender love at a ripe old age, able to look back at a life well lived. But the end is achieved through the present. We must live in the present moment. Be the people we want to be now. What you do now casts a vote for who you are both now and who you will become in the future. Stay in the game. Make the most of now.

/ the exercise /

Marriages evolve because life is never static. You grow and change. So does your partner. These units are presented in a circular graphic to reflect the fact the marriaging well is a never ending process. The systems you put in place last year may need to be updated. Your partner’s hopes and dreams will change course, perhaps only a little, or perhaps a lot. Healthy marriages are built not just on kind communication, but consistent communication. Together, you course correct along life’s way. Keep returning to each other in love and intentionality.