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I’ve been thinking a lot about couples who have been married 20, 30, 40 years… and then suddenly get divorced. Do you know one of those couples? If you do, you may have been shocked when you heard the news… most people are. Because these are the couples that “looked so happy” and never seemed to fight. Everyone thought they had a good marriage. So then you wonder… “Did one of them have an affair?” Or, “Are one of them having a midlife crisis?” Surely, something big must have happened. Sometimes that’s true… there is an affair or some other big betrayal. But a lot of these couples divorcing later in life describe something much less dramatic: they simply grew apart over time. And you may be thinking, “How does that even happen?” Well, it’s pretty easy… Life is always moving, and for most of us, life is very full - raising kids, advancing careers, caregiving, and so many other things. And many couples get extremely good at running their households in the midst of all of this. But sometimes we get so good at managing life together that we stop paying as much attention to each other. And this is rarely intentional. It’s just life taking over. And then one day, the kids are gone, things are much quieter, and you look across the room at the person you’ve been married to forever and think… Wait… Who are we now? And this topic really made me think, because I’m in this season myself. I mentioned last week that KC and I just celebrated 25 years of marriage. Our youngest just left for college, and our house is pretty quiet. It’s just us now. And if you are in this season of life too, I think we have a really wonderful opportunity here. Maybe you and your partner have been intentional about paying as much attention to each other as you have the rest of life’s demands. But maybe you haven’t… and that’s ok. Consider this your nudge to start. 😉 Now, if your marriage is in real trouble, please don’t wait to get some help and support through therapy or coaching. But if you’re not in a crisis, yet you just don’t feel connected to your partner, here is something I really want you to try this week: Ask your spouse something you don’t already know the answer to. And I know some of you in long marriages are thinking “Why bother? I already know everything about my partner.” But trust me here… you don’t. People are always growing and changing. What we want changes. What we are excited about changes. Your partner isn’t the same person they were when you were dating or when the kids were young. And neither are you. So go out to dinner and agree that for the first 20 minutes, you’re not going to talk about the stuff you normally talk about - kids, work, schedules, the house, all the day-to-day stuff. Then ask a couple of these questions: What’s something you’d still love to learn or try? What do you think has changed the most about you in the last ten years? What do you think has changed the most about me? If we could plan one trip just for us, where would you want to go and why? What’s something we used to do together that you’d like to bring back? What’s one thing you think would make our everyday life more fun?
And then just listen. You’re not trying to fix anything or have some big relationship conversation. You are just two people who have been together a long time who are still getting to know each other. And if you need more of these questions, just reply to this email and I will be happy to send you a whole list! So this week’s podcast/YouTube episode is all about “Gray Divorce”: why it’s become so common, the warning signs couples miss, and what we can do now to keep from slowly becoming strangers. You can listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch the full episode on YouTube by clicking on the links below:
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