We made it.

This morning I hugged and kissed my wife and said, “we made it.” Today marks our 30th anniversary together through thick and thin. And let me tell you, in that amount of time there have been plenty of both. For ten years my wife’s work kept her on the road for two-thirds of the year. There were times I’d get to be in her presence for twenty-four hours after being apart for three weeks only to drive her to the airport to say goodbye for another three weeks. If you think working remote has challenges, try a remote marriage. And there are all of the classic challenges: Employment, money, family, friends…just go down the list and we’ve been through them all except one.

My wife and I do not have children (a decision we made prior to getting married) which means that we have never had a third thing—if you will—to keep us together. There is no buffer in our relationship which you would think would make it easier, but from my perspective is just the opposite. After a few decades of looking back on our struggles and witnessing other relationships collapse we’ve indexed on a few foundations that we have to continually practice if we want to make it to the next year.

I am still baffled how after 30 years we still struggle with communication based issues. By now I should think that we can operate with the speed and efficiency of the best trained and most experienced Navy Seal teams. Nope. Even after the thousands of hours spent by each of us man or woman ‘splaining things to each other—the wrong comment or response at the wrong time ignites. And suddenly that happy sunny day turns into nuclear winter. I’ve come to realize that developing and practicing better communication is a constant requirement for strong relationships. The work on communication can never end.

Which leads to the second insight of the need for developing and constantly practicing empathy. Despite what we think we know based on observation and our own thinking, humans are so, so, so complicated. I can’t tell you how many times I think I know what my wife is thinking and feeling only to be completely and absolutely wrong (see first insight). And I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve teased her about something which produces a big, long laugh. Yet the next day, the same comment doesn’t land or has the opposite reaction. I’ve had to learn that I don’t need to understand it, but offer a simple and straight apology. It’s more important to offer empathy than it is to try and understand what went wrong.

And then there is patience which gets easier over time. As we get older the gray starts to appear, not just in our appearance but our gauge for what is right or wrong. I think that has to do with pattern recognition. Knowing that when something happens to create tension in a relationship many times people just need space, distance, and time to recover, reflect, and, hopefully, gain a grounded perspective and composure to come back to the conversation. This isn’t “set them free” but “give them room to breathe” without peppering them with questions so you can understand why (see last insight).

Obviously love has to be there—the spine of the relationship‚ and practicing communication, empathy, and patience is the purest expression.