I wrote a version of this in December 2016. Coming back to it now, married over a decade and considerably more lived-in as a person, the core of it is still true. More true, actually. So here is the updated version, with everything I know now layered in.
Marriage is one of the more humbling experiences available to a human being. You think you know someone. You think you know yourself. Then you commit to building a shared life and spend the next several years discovering how much you did not account for.
Chris and I have navigated a lot together. Good seasons and genuinely difficult ones. Health challenges that were not in any plan either of us made. The ordinary friction of two people with their own histories and tendencies trying to become a unit. None of it has been clean. All of it has been worth it.
One of the things that has made the most consistent difference in our marriage is something I almost feel the need to caveat before I say it, which tells you something about how we talk about faith in public spaces. We pray together. Not perfectly, not as often as we probably should, and certainly not with any claim to having it figured out. But consistently enough over the years that I can say with certainty it has changed us, and changed how we show up for each other.
I want to say something about why this works before I talk about what it does, because I think the mechanism matters.
I want to say something that I did not have the words for in 2016. Listening to Chris pray has taught me things about him that ordinary conversation would never have surfaced. It has shown me the man he is trying to be, what he cares about most, how he thinks about the people he loves, where he carries things quietly that he does not always say out loud. I have grown in love with him through those moments in ways I did not anticipate. There is a safety in that, in knowing someone that completely, that I would not trade. Praying together is not always easy, especially when you are depleted from everything the day has asked of you. There is an honesty required that can feel exposing when you are tired or guarded or not at your best. But that is also, I think, exactly when it matters most. Coming back to each other in that way, even on the hard days, creates something cumulative. A record of having shown up together. A habit of choosing the relationship even when it would be easier not to. It changed our marriage. I say that plainly because it is true and because I think there is something worth sharing in that, whatever form a shared practice takes in your own relationship.
What is the consistent practice that keeps you and your person aligned?
I would genuinely like to know. Leave it in the comments.
For more honest conversations about relationships and real life, listen to Chat Time with Ro on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow along on Instagram at @rochellejchong.
