It's a dance between the sexes. The secret is to find the harmony across multiple roles, and build each other up in them.

So for example, she's an amazing home maker, and creates the context for vibrant family like and home education, all of which takes great skill, planning, and execution equal to many professional jobs. I'm her biggest fan, facilitating some of her plans, sharing in some of the jobs to be done, and sponsoring the lifestyle through what I earn outside the home. She encourages and coaches me in that, and ensures I pace myself well to not burn out. Homemaker and breadwinner in harmony, not in competition, pursuing a common vision.

If we were a startup,  the dynamics would be similar, we're a partnership in the true sense of the word - and all the 'isms' be damned.

But that's not the only axis... there's more to life than households and economics. 

There's a spiritual axis, where she is intuitive, emotional, devoted, inspiring... and I am grounded, theological, sometimes confrontational where things encroach on our family from outside, sometimes firm in guiding our older teens in the path of life, or ensuring they show respect to the feminine as well as the masculine. I lead and she inspired, again it's a dance, a harmony not a competition, and we are the biggest fans of each other... as it should be.

There's a romantic axis, not for detail here, but again it's about harmony and about encouraging the other, not a competition. The 'manly advice' to get your pleasure first is boyish nonsense. When you enter a negotiation to see what you can get it's a zero sum tension that soon runs out of sparkle. When you each focus on the others joy, it's creative abundance. You don't learn this in a few weeks.

Divorces of the nonviolent kind, tend to be the end of a long journey of insecurity, boredom and contempt. Marriages that thrive tend to involve a shared vision, the daily dance of harmony, and having each others backs. I don't care how many other connections or commitments I have, I'm going to be the one person she can count on, and if I have to drop someone else to ensure that's the case, they're getting dropped. Bosses included. Parents included. Friends who make you try to impress them included. Flirty acquaintances who think they can displace what you already have. 

That's where you build integrity and relationship capital over time. You choose each other over everyone else, even if that involves short term discomfort, you choose daily not just on the wedding day. I can see why relationships that endure look back and talk about hitting a crisis at 5 years, 10 years etc... we both change and grow in these periods, you can reinvent yourself completely in 5 years... and there's effort needed to readjust, realign, grow together not just grow alongside... we call these moments 'falling in love all over again'... we're in such a season now and our teenagers call it "mum, dad, go on honeymoon or something"... but awkwardness aside I'm glad we can give them this example alongside the shouting matches we've had when the harmony was temporarily conquered by competition and selfish ambitions.

At the same time, I have to admit, this is my second chance. My wife met me when I was a young widower, not the smoothest pick up artist nor that romantically inclined given what I'd been through. But we started a conversation that developed into a harmonious understanding and shared vision, and then I just couldn't keep my eyes off her for a moment... fifteen years later I still smile when I wake and see her resting on the pillow next to mine.

That's a long form and I bet the clients won't know what to do with it, but... here it is.

💜