Twelve Years In
I thought I knew what marriage was twelve years ago.
I was wrong. But not in the way you’d expect.
I knew enough to begin, but not enough to understand what I was really agreeing to. I don’t say that with embarrassment. I say it with accuracy.
Twelve years of marriage. That number lands differently than it used to. Early on, anniversaries felt like milestones you reached. Now they feel more like checkpoints you notice. Moments where you take stock quietly and keep moving.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
Starting Selfish
I think most people, and probably men especially, enter marriage fairly selfish. Not in a malicious way. More in a default way.
If you look at how most teenagers grow up, it’s natural to be self-centered around your needs, your time, your priorities. You almost have to in order to understand what’s important to you. That orientation doesn’t just disappear when you become an adult.
Marriage teaches you very quickly that it’s not all about you.
At first, that realization can be uncomfortable. Even confronting. But something interesting happens once you stop resisting it. Over time, it starts to feel natural. And eventually, it becomes enjoyable.
Having kids accelerates this lesson dramatically, but marriage introduces it first. You begin pouring yourself into other people—your spouse, your family—and you start to see that effort come back in unexpected ways. Fulfillment shifts. The win changes.
The closest analogy I can think of is the transition people describe when they move from being an individual contributor into management. The focus moves from what I can accomplish to what we can accomplish. I haven’t lived that professionally yet, but I’ve lived it personally. And that shift has been far more rewarding than I ever expected.
Over time, selflessness stops feeling like something you have to work at. It becomes second nature. What once felt like sacrifice starts to feel like purpose.
That has been one of the most surprising and enjoyable parts of a marriage that’s matured.
Unexpressed Expectations
Unexpressed expectations have probably been the biggest aha moment of our marriage.
A few years in, (maybe four, five, or six) we both realized something uncomfortable. We were grading each other on things the other person didn’t even know they were being evaluated on.
When you really break that down, it’s not just unhelpful. It’s unfair.
The simplest example is something mundane.
“You didn’t do the dishes.”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to do the dishes.”
How can someone fail an expectation they were never aware of?
Once we saw that clearly, we started noticing how often it showed up. In big things and small ones. Not just chores or logistics, but emotional weight too.
One recent example that clarified it for me was timing. Sometimes my wife would bring up a heavy topic and want an answer right away. What took me a while to understand is that she had often been thinking about it for days or weeks. I was hearing it for the first time and suddenly being asked for a thoughtful response on the spot.
Learning to say, “I need some time to think about this so I can give you a good answer, not just an emotional one,” changed a lot. It wasn’t avoidance. It was respect.
That only became clear after we talked about it.
More broadly, we learned that if I want someone to show up a certain way—if I need help, support, or something done—I have to say it out loud. Expecting someone to read my mind only leads to quiet resentment.
That lesson cuts both ways. We’re not mind readers. Once we stopped pretending we were, things got simpler. Clearer. Kinder.
This has probably helped our marriage more than anything else. Learning to make expectations explicit instead of letting them quietly poison the well.
Learning When to Keep My Mouth Shut
Wit and a strong vocabulary are gifts. They’ve served me well in a lot of areas of my life. But in marriage, I’ve learned they can also be a liability.
There’s almost always a comment ready to come out of my mouth. A joke. A comeback. A clever line. And just because it’s there, and just because it might get a laugh, doesn’t mean it needs to be said.
Learning when to stay quiet has taken far longer than I expected. Even longer to practice consistently.
Part of that lesson has been understanding how my wife experiences the world. She’s far more aesthetic than pragmatic. Tone matters. Delivery matters. How something feels matters just as much as what’s being said. I’m still working on that. Probably always will be.
Ironically, I’m more aesthetic than pragmatic too.
We’re teaching our oldest this now. She has the gift of gab, which is wonderful, but it can also get her into trouble. Restraint is a skill. One that takes time to learn and even more time to master.
When I was younger, someone once asked me why I was such a smart ass. My answer was simple. Because I was good at it.
What I didn’t understand then is that being able to “win” a moment doesn’t mean you’re advancing anything that matters.
In marriage, especially, you can win an argument and still lose ground. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. It doesn’t move the relationship forward. It moves it backward. That lesson usually comes after stubbing your toe more than once.
I’m still learning this. Restraint doesn’t come naturally to me. My default is intensity. Full gas all the time. Learning to lead with restraint instead has been difficult.
It has also been one of the most important skills I’ve developed in marriage, at work, and as a parent.
The Tools in Our Toolbox
Awareness matters in a marriage. Being able to sense when things are drifting. Or even when they’re running well. It’s all important. What really matters is knowing what to do about it.
Over time, we’ve learned a couple of simple ways to reset. Not solve. Not fix. Just reset.
The first is a silly little card game called Monopoly Deal. We’ll sit on the couch, maybe have a glass of wine, maybe listen to music, and play. For whatever reason, it reliably lowers the temperature. It brings laughter back into the room. It gets us talking again.
Almost every time, whatever we were holding onto quietly dissolves.
The second is going on walks. Something about moving side by side makes conversation easier. Barriers come down. Things that felt stuck start to loosen.
We’ve leaned on walks since the beginning, and the card game for four or five years now. They work so well that we bring them with us wherever we go. Walks happen naturally, especially when we travel. Monopoly Deal comes along, too. It works on train rides, airplane rides, and in hotels. It keeps us present.
I don’t think it’s really about the game or the walk. It’s the context they create. Phones away. No agenda. Just being with each other again.
I don’t care why it works. I just know that it does. Having something familiar and reliable to reach for has made a real difference for us.
Dreaming Together
Dreaming together has always come naturally to us.
Early on, when we were just dating and didn’t even have our own place, we’d wander through Target and walk the kitchen section, imagining what our future home might look like. We were only months in at that point, but we were already picturing a life together.
That habit never really went away.
Even now, it’s often our answer to the question, “What do you want to do tonight?” Sometimes it happens on a walk. Sometimes while playing Monopoly Deal. Sometimes we’ll say it outright. Let’s have a glass of wine and dream.
It can be about anything. A trip. A home renovation. Retirement. The next chapter. There’s no agenda and no pressure for it to turn into a plan. That distinction matters. A dream isn’t a commitment. It’s an exercise in alignment.
We’re good at letting the guardrails down and riffing. We don’t limit each other. We don’t negotiate outcomes. We just explore the what ifs together in a way that’s fun, constructive, and grounding.
What I love most about it is that dreaming has never been about dissatisfaction with where we are. It’s always been about remembering that we’re pointed in the same direction.
Fourteen years together, and that still brings us closer.
A Full Cup
We’ve both come to believe that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
It’s about sustainability.
For us, it looks like encouraging each other to stay full. A girls’ night. Time with friends. Space to laugh, recharge, and feel like yourself again. On my end, it’s hockey on Friday nights. A beer with the boys. Time that fills me back up.
We’ve been intentional about this for all twelve years of our marriage and fourteen years together. It’s made a real difference. Showing up well for each other and for our family requires showing up well for ourselves first.
When one of us is depleted, everything suffers. Patience thins. Tone slips. Resentment creeps in. Taking care of ourselves is part of the responsibility.
It’s something we’ve lived. It has served us well.
A Quiet Gratitude
One thing that isn’t lost on me is how grateful I am that my attention isn’t divided.
I’m fully all in on my wife, and she’s the same with me. There’s no background negotiation and no alternate track running in my head. I don’t spend energy fighting urges or managing what ifs.
That absence alone feels like a gift.
It doesn’t mean we’re perfect at everything. We’re not. But when something needs work, I’m interested in working on it with her and on us. I’m excited to show up for the life we’re building, not distracted by something or someone else.
I’m just grateful. Living any other way sounds exhausting.
A Deeper Foundation
There’s one more layer underneath everything I’ve written so far, and I want to name it carefully.
We had a strong relationship and a good marriage before we brought it into the Church. Nothing was broken. Nothing needed fixing. When we chose to enter into the sacrament of marriage, something deepened.
Inviting God into our marriage didn’t change who we were. It changed how seriously we held what we already had. It added gravity. Intention. A sense that this wasn’t something we were sustaining on our own strength.
Over time, we noticed the difference in quiet ways. More patience. More understanding. Better communication. Not because things suddenly became easy, but because they became worth staying with, even when they were hard.
It doesn’t sit at the front of this story. But it’s underneath all of it.
In This Together
Twelve years in, I don’t feel like I’ve figured marriage out.
What I feel instead is grounded. Clearer about what matters. More honest about where I still have work to do.
We’re not perfect. I’m not a perfect husband. I know I can be difficult in my own ways, and she can be too. We argue. We miss each other sometimes. We’ve had moments, even recently, that weren’t our best.
But underneath all of that is something steady. We know we’re in this together.
We’re intentional about working on our marriage, not just our family. Those aren’t the same thing, and both matter. Showing up for our kids starts with showing up well for each other.
One of the things I’m most grateful for is that our daughters get to see that lived out. Not a flawless marriage, but a real one. They get to see what it looks like for a husband to honor his wife, to stay engaged, to keep choosing the partnership.
I hope that shapes what they expect and what they won’t settle for someday.
When I step back and look at the life we’re building—the work, the joy, the effort, the dreaming—I feel lucky. Grateful. Energized.
Twelve years in, I’m still learning.
And I can’t wait to see what’s next.
— Stephen
This is part of Intentional Luxury—a newsletter about building wealth, meaning, and legacy through thoughtful decisions. If something here resonated, hit reply. I’d love to hear what you’re learning in your own marriage, relationship, or long-term commitments.
“And just because it’s there, and just because it might get a laugh, doesn’t mean it needs to be said.” — You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.