September is our second wedding anniversary.
We’ve only been married two years, but we dated for a decade before we got married.
One of the books that shaped me most is Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade. The book argues that choosing a partner is the most important decision of your life, full stop. I read it after we were already together. Looking back, I feel lucky.
I like the analogy where everyone is a unique puzzle piece. Each of you has your own edges. The question is how well those edges fit. All the edges need to fit to stay evenly together.
We met early. When you’re young, those edges haven’t hardened yet. Ours lined up thanks to being young and moldable, and thanks to all the time spent together. But I won’t say this happened without effort. We were adults when we met, after all.
I don’t want to take that whole process for granted. So this is a note to myself on what actually matters.
The lesson I value most: a relationship is not 50/50. It’s 80/80. The strongest relationships aren’t perfectly equal. Both people try to give a little more than half.
Whenever something feels unfair, I try to flip it: I should be giving a little more. When both of you think that way, a lot of friction dissolves on its own.
There’s also something like the Chinese story of Tian Ji’s horse racing. Not all friction is equal. Not all rewards are equal either.
In our marriage, my wife doesn’t like certain chores that I feel pretty indifferent about. I also know which chores she dreads or gets impatient with. So when those show up, I just take them. That alone prevents a lot of daily irritation. She does the same for me on the things I avoid. It’s less about keeping score, and more about each of you carrying a bit more of what the other doesn’t want to carry.
Rewards work the same way. The same effort can land completely differently on two people. So you learn what the other person actually likes, and you show care in their language, not yours. Love languages are the obvious framework here. I won’t belabor it, but it works.
It’s also cliché advice that people should try to find common hobbies or things to do together. In my experience, the effort of trying to find and do things the other likes is more important than the activity itself. Being willing to explore new hobbies, and the learning and struggle that come with them, offers more perspective into the other person than the activities themselves.
We took tennis lessons together and it didn’t stick with either of us. It’s still a fun experience and meaningful time spent together.
Again, this is mostly for me. I don’t have dating advice. If there’s any takeaway at all, maybe it’s this: look at your own edges and theirs, and ask which ones you can still work through together.