My best advice after 27 years of marriage

I recently read an online joke asking for the number one cause of divorce. The answer? Marriage. While it got a chuckle out of me, it also earned a grimace. That line of thinking mirrors the growing number of people choosing to skip the altar altogether. A book I read recently suggested that marriage hasn’t kept pace with modern times. It’s no longer a financial necessity like it was in the 1950s; today, people choose to get married out of love. Go figure.

Reflecting on our milestone, my wife and I gave a toast where we were asked to share our best advice for those hoping to reach the quarter-century mark and beyond.

When I first got hitched, people told me never to go to bed angry or sleep in separate rooms. While I see the intent, I don’t wholly agree. In the heat of an argument, a little space is often the best cure to prevent saying something you can’t take back.

Instead, my advice is simple: embrace change.

The woman I married nearly three decades ago is not the same woman sitting next to me today. If I had resisted her growth, I would have spent decades fighting the very person I vowed to love, honor, and cherish. We evolve every day. The best, and most challenging, part of long-term marriage is realizing every few years that you are no longer married to the same person.

By the same token, I’m certainly not the same guy who walked down the aisle 27 years ago (thank goodness). Who knows where we’d be if we hadn’t embraced each other’s growth? We were practically babies when we committed to spending our lives together. At 23, I barely knew how to take care of myself, let alone a wife and future kids.

While there’s no single secret to a long marriage, the fact that we change over time is rarely talked about. And when it is, it is hardly positive (Ugh, He/She changed). The reality is staying together for decades means you will have to let go of the fairytale and learn to embrace each other through each phase of life.

That might sound obvious, but I think it gets to the heart of what that old “don’t go to bed angry” advice was trying to say. You can’t live with someone for decades and expect that you won’t go through some rough times and difficulties. What matters is coming back together after a rough patch to reflect on the meaning of “for better or worse, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live”

While going through the daily grind, it’s easy to forget to reconnect. That’s usually when people panic and realize their partner has changed, leading to a desperate attempt to force things back to “how they used to be.” Instead, look at those moments as an opportunity to recommit to the people you’ve become.

Change is the only absolute certainty in life, especially in a relationship. Trying to freeze frame who you were at 20 only breeds conflict. Growth is going to happen. So while I used to tell young couples to take their time before walking down the aisle, my real advice now is straightforward: embrace the change, and embrace each other.