834 - 30 Questions for 30 Years Together

Stephanie and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary.

Thirty years.

As we thought about how we wanted to mark this milestone, I had the idea of sitting down together with 30 questions designed to help us reflect on the life we have built, the challenges we have navigated, the ways we have changed, and what we have learned about love and partnership along the way.

Neither of us reviewed the questions ahead of time.

That turned out to be part of what made this conversation so meaningful.

Some questions immediately opened the door to stories we had not talked about in years. Some caused us to see our past differently. A few contained assumptions we completely rejected, which led to conversations that were probably more revealing than the questions themselves.

We talked about the two young people who got married 30 years ago and what they understood, and misunderstood, about love.

We reflected on the financial struggles of our early years, including digging through our change jar to buy gasoline with pennies.

We talked about becoming parents, the mistakes we made, the parenting philosophies we eventually rejected, and our realization that we were not simply raising children. We were raising adults.

We revisited the season when I left the insurance business and we went all in on building our own business, including the enormous financial and emotional pressure that decision created.

We talked about how our beliefs have changed, how our understanding of marriage has changed, and how we have learned to give each other the freedom to continue becoming who we are.

One of the themes that emerged throughout the conversation is that neither of us needs the other to remain the person we used to be.