Better Together: Our 25th Anniversary.
Welcome to Better Together. The newsletter focused on showing you how amazing your marriage can be, and trying to help you get there. Each week we give you a brief glimpse into our lives and three potentially life-changing ideas to help you become a better partner. We hope that you will find this newsletter inspirational and practical.
We believe that “close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.” [1] We believe that by strengthening marriages, and families, we can improve the world at large.
We hope you will help us share this vision. Please consider sharing this newsletter with others via: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, or email.
1. the Grant Study, a 75-year-long Harvard research project on human development
From Our Lives
25 years ago Kelli and I got married to each other. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!
We were 19 at the time. Most likely no one else, except us, thought it was a good idea.
How has our marriage survived 25 years? Extreme stubbornness about not getting divorced.
Besides that, I really don’t know what our secret is.
What I do know is that the best years of our marriage have been when we were really united in purpose.
At first we were united in trying to pay for university by delivering newspapers at 5 am each day. Then we were united in moving to a city further away from our family to go to grad school. Then we were united in trying to raise our growing family that eventually grew to 8 children. Then we were united in moving across the country to a new job with all these children in tow. Then, then, then. The point is, we took on challenges, and tried to meet those challenges together.
A few years ago, we noticed our unity starting to wane. As a result we created a new challenge for ourselves: learning about what makes a good marriage. Our new unifying challenge became writing this newsletter, writing articles for our website, and trying to live what we have been writing about.
For us, unity has come from continually challenging ourselves to be better.
We think unity is our marriage’s superpower. And we think it can be your marriage’s superpower as well.
What We Have Been Reading
“When you can't control what's happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what's happening. That's where your power is.”
— Anonymous
“Before you try to make your partner see things your way, it’s best to make sure they feel seen, understood, and heard.”
— Gottman Institute
“Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”
— David Foster Wallace
Call To Action
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Now, go give your spouse a hug and tell them you love them!
Written and published by Nathan & Kelli.
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