How Personal Growth Coincides with an Evolving Partnership

The Book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, just published its 25th-year anniversary edition. The genius of that book was the way it provided simple solutions to our complicated adult lives by highlighting lessons learned from the perspective of a 5-year-old experiencing kindergarten. It just so happens my wife and I are celebrating our 25th year anniversary on September 1st, 2020. In the same style of that book, here are my top “everything I ever really need to know I learned being married.”

• See the highest potential in the other person even if they can’t,
• Schedule date nights and vacations, and if you can help it, don’t work on the weekend,
• Don’t try and fix your partner; listen more and solve their problems-less,
• Don’t step over anything or beat around the bush; tell the truth and call it out in the other,
• Don’t sweat the small stuff: play, laugh, discover your adult child together,
• Travel. Enough said on that one,
• Have separate interests and friends,
• Aside from raising your kids, have projects and interests you pursue together,
• Keep boundaries; their problems and stresses are not yours and you don’t help them by taking them on,
• Clarify your own purpose and path and develop a purpose and path as a couple,
• Review your marriage vows on a regular basis and update as the relationship evolves.