❤️ TREE 198: Be your own person
This week is Christine’s and my 25th wedding anniversary. We’re sharing things that make our relationship thrive. We hope some of them will be useful to you.
We got married super young (22 and 18). At first, when we weren’t working or pooping, we did everything together. As we turned into actual adults, we discovered that we don’t like all the same things. We decided it was fine for us to do things together and separately. This is probably obvious to you. It was big news to us. Our interests branched out and we became more fully formed humans. It didn’t pull us apart. It made us more interesting to each other.
We do a lot of different things, but we make a point of being interested in each other’s things. We cheer each other on. The bonus is both of us have broader interests than we would have otherwise.
The adjacent side
Adding more stuff to a struggling relationship, especially kids, will not fix it. We’ve moved continents, lost a child, been dirt poor and gone through major changes in our politics and beliefs. Our biggest nastiest arguments, our deepest divisions, weren’t about any of those things. They were about how to raise the kids.
We’ve found that working on ourselves is more effective than adding stuff. Whole people make better partners than half people.
One more thing
We eat together whenever we can. Lockdown has been fantastic for us. I’m working from home, so we get to have lunch together every day.
Grow together
Jeff & Christine
Christine: This song is in my head every day. Gnarly man guitar music makes me happy. Also, Jeff’s least favourite type of music.
Jeff: It’s not my least favourite. It sits above anything by Simply Red, Elbow and whiny autotuned R&B boys.
Jeff: This was one of the songs I was listening to when I honestly admitted to myself that I’m a really big fan of girl pop. Christine is a really big non-fan of girl pop.
The Memory of TREE playlist – every song from every email:
