Silver Anniversary

By Tim Turner

No, I’m not talking about Torrid Tech.  I’m referring to my marriage.  My lovely wife and I celebrated 25 years together in August.  If you are blessed enough to be married this long, you definitely will learn a few lessons that help smooth the ride.  These lessons are not just for marriage but for any relationship that you care about.

Be Forgiving – It’s not easy to do, but being forgiving and not keeping a running list of past wrongs will go a long way to drawing you closer together.  Being able to admit you are wrong on something is an important part of this lesson.

Be Intentional – Your spouse doesn’t always want you to “just wing it” especially when it comes to the relationship.  We have little traditions that show each other we care.  My wife always likes a good card for Valentine’s Day, her Birthday, and our Anniversary to name a few, but I go the extra mile and write my own poem in these cards. Yes, one that I make up myself!  It doesn’t take long but it speaks volumes in intentionally telling her how much I love her in my own words.

Be Available – If you aren’t around much because you work and travel all of the time, then it makes it difficult to grow your relationship.  Not impossible, but difficult.  Luckily I have not had to travel too much with my work.  But besides being in town, being available when you are in town is what I’m talking about.  My wife and I have often met for “dates” just for breakfast.  Yes, breakfast out.  It’s not as crowded and it’s less expensive than dinner. Or do lunch.  Every date doesn’t have to be a fancy dinner at an expensive restaurant.  There’s nothing better than meeting over a meal that no one has to cook or clean up for.  We also go on walks together as often as we can, usually every day after dinner.  This gives us time to talk and catch up on what happened in our day while doing something else important – exercising.

Be Adventurous – For our honeymoon 25 years ago I took my wife to France. This was BEFORE the internet.  I had to write letters to hotels to reserve a room and find out the exact prices.  It took a fair amount of planning and work.  But the adventure we had when we went on that trip made it all worthwhile.

25 years later – this summer – we went back to France and had just as much adventure as the first time.  We were able to visit many wineries in the Bordeaux region, as well as castles in the Loire valley.  We were able to go to Giverny to see Monet’s house and gardens, and end up in Paris for several days of site seeing including Versailles, Musee d’Orsay, Les Tuilleries, The Eiffel Tower (of course), and the Louvre.  One fun adventure we had was going to a cooking class where we shopped for the ingredients and then learned how to cook a number of dishes including mussels, coq aux vin, and poached peaches with vanilla ice cream.

Be Open – By this I mean communicate”.  Don’t keep everything bottled up inside.  As men we typically want to keep our feelings inside and that makes it hard on your spouse.  Being open also means being open to “feedback” on what you can do better and what is going great without getting all bent out of shape about it.

I could write many other lessons I have learned in 25 years of marriage but there just isn’t enough paper in this newsletter!  I’m far from a perfect husband, but my best trait is that I keep on trying to do better. I guess you’d call that focused persistence. Some of these same lessons also apply to your relationship with your clients and customers.  Can you see some similarities?  I hope so, but keep the trips to France with just you and your spouse…