Wisdom Is Knowing Which Season You're In

I was recently having a conversation with someone around my own age about relationships.

She asked me whether I thought it would be appropriate for someone in her situation to move in with a man rather than marry him.

I don't think my answer was the one she expected.

When I suggested that, depending on the circumstances, I didn't necessarily see a problem with it at our stage of life, she seemed surprised. Part of her response was, "Well, I'm a Christian."

I understood why she said it. Her faith was influencing the way she viewed the question. But it also made me realize that the real conversation wasn't simply about Christianity or even about marriage.

It was about whether we evaluate life's opportunities according to the season we're actually living in or according to expectations that may no longer fit our circumstances.

At one point she asked what I would think if my twenty-one-year-old daughter made the same decision.

To me, that comparison doesn't really fit.

My daughter is in a completely different season of life. She's finishing college, preparing for law school, and building the foundation of her future. She's focused on becoming the person she wants to be before worrying about finding someone else.

The decisions that make sense for a young woman with decades of opportunity ahead of her are naturally different from the decisions facing someone who has already lived sixty years.

Those are simply two different conversations.

She also mentioned someone who had known a man only a short time before marrying him, and they've now been happily married for decades. I think those stories are wonderful. But I also think we have to be careful not to build our expectations around exceptions.

There will always be people who become millionaires overnight. There will always be couples who meet and marry quickly and enjoy fifty wonderful years together. There will always be someone who earns a college degree at seventy-five and begins a whole new career.

Those stories inspire us.

They simply don't establish the pattern most people should expect.

I understand this because I've lived it.

When I graduated from high school, my father wanted me to go directly to college. Instead, I chose the military. I don't regret serving my country, but I also recognize that decision placed me on a different path than many of my friends.

Between the ages of fifty and sixty, I earned my associate degree, bachelor's degree, and MBA. Those degrees have enriched my life tremendously. They've helped me become a better writer, a better thinker, and recognize opportunities I probably would have missed otherwise.

But I'm also realistic enough to know that earning an MBA at sixty doesn't create the same career opportunities it would have created had I earned it at twenty-five. That's not unfair. It's simply the natural result of choices I made decades earlier.

Instead of being disappointed by that reality, I learned to ask a different question:

"What opportunities are available to me now?"

That question changed everything.

I believe we all reach a point where wisdom means accepting the season we're in instead of wishing we were still living in another one. That doesn't mean giving up. It means making the wisest decision from where you stand today.

Another thought occurred to me during that conversation.

I think many of us—especially if we've never been married—can unintentionally romanticize marriage itself. From childhood we're surrounded by stories of the prince finding the princess, the beautiful wedding, the happily-ever-after ending. The wedding becomes the dream.

Ironically, for those of us who have actually been married for many years, the wedding isn't the destination at all. It lasted one day. The marriage is what mattered.

Kim and I have been married for nearly three decades. Looking back, I don't believe the greatest gift of marriage has been the romance of our younger years. Those memories are precious, but they've never been the foundation.

The foundation has been built through thousands of ordinary days.

Working through disagreements.

Learning to forgive.

Supporting one another during difficult seasons.

Laughing together.

Growing together.

Simply walking through life side by side.

But perhaps the greatest lesson marriage has taught me is this:

When we're young, we often think about marriage in terms of what it will do for us.

Will this person make me happy?

Will they meet my needs?

Will they love me the way I want to be loved?

Those aren't wrong questions, but they're incomplete.

The longer you're married, the more your perspective changes.

You begin asking a different question:

What kind of husband do I need to become for her?

The focus slowly shifts away from what you're receiving and toward what you're giving. You realize that marriage isn't simply about finding the right person. It's about becoming the right person.

Ironically, I think that's also where the deepest joy is found. As we've grown older, my understanding of marriage has changed. I no longer see it primarily as romance. I see it as companionship.

It's about having someone beside you through life's later chapters. Someone to encourage you, laugh with you, care for you, challenge you, and simply share life with.

That kind of love isn't shallow. It's deeper than the fairy tales. It isn't something that happens in a ceremony. It's something that develops over years.

That also caused me to think about something else. Sometimes we place so much emphasis on the marriage certificate that we begin believing it's the thing that guarantees a lasting relationship.

But human nature teaches us otherwise. Many marriages end in divorce. Many relationships outside of marriage eventually end as well.

The certificate itself isn't what determines whether two people stay together.

People do. Character. Commitment. Patience. Forgiveness. The willingness to grow. The willingness to stay when life becomes difficult.

Those are the things that make relationships last.

A marriage certificate is meaningful, but it cannot overcome human nature.

If two people are unwilling to grow together, no ceremony can guarantee they'll remain together.

Likewise, if two mature people are deeply committed to one another, their relationship will ultimately be sustained by the quality of their character, not merely by a document.

As we grow older, I think our questions ought to change.

Instead of asking, "Does this relationship look like the one I dreamed about when I was twenty?" perhaps we should ask, "Is this a kind, trustworthy person I could enjoy walking through the rest of my life with?"

Those are very different questions.

One is rooted in youthful fantasy. The other is rooted in mature wisdom.

The older we become, the narrower some opportunities naturally become. That isn't discouraging; it's simply reality. A twenty-one-year-old has an enormous number of potential relationships ahead of her.

A sixty-year-old simply doesn't have the same number of opportunities. That doesn't mean there are no opportunities. It means the opportunities should be viewed through a different lens.

Sometimes I wonder whether we unintentionally allow cultural expectations or religious traditions to become barriers rather than guides. The formal wedding ceremonies many of us picture today are largely traditions that developed over centuries. Biblical marriages often looked very different from modern Western weddings.

That doesn't diminish marriage. It simply reminds us that the relationship has always mattered more than the ceremony.

If someone genuinely desires companionship during the later years of life, I would hate to see that opportunity missed because they're holding on to an expectation that may not be the only faithful or wise path available to them.

Every person must ultimately make those decisions according to their own conscience before God. But I do believe wisdom calls us to honestly reevaluate our expectations as life unfolds.

Life isn't about recreating the opportunities we had at twenty. It's about recognizing the opportunities we still have today.

The happiest people I've known weren't necessarily the ones who got everything they dreamed about.

They were the ones who learned to appreciate the blessings that each new season of life offered them.

Perhaps that's the real lesson.

Wisdom isn't pretending every season offers the same opportunities.

Wisdom is recognizing the season you're in, embracing it honestly, and making the very best decisions possible from this point forward.

The Gods Envy Us Because We Are Mortal

There is an ancient Greek idea that has remained with humanity for thousands of years because it touches something deeply true about the human condition. The idea is simple: the gods envy us because we are mortal. 

They envy us because every moment we experience is precious precisely because it is finite. If one possesses eternity, perhaps nothing ever feels urgent, irreplaceable, or sacred. But for us, because our time is limited, every sunrise, every conversation, every accomplishment, every act of love, and every ordinary moment carries a significance that immortality itself might never fully understand.

And perhaps that is the encouragement hidden within the idea.

Many of us spend our lives believing that our best moments have already passed. We look backward at our youth, our opportunities, our mistakes, our lost relationships, our unrealized dreams, and quietly conclude that somehow we have missed life itself.

But what if we have misunderstood the gift? What if the value of life was never found in having unlimited time, but in recognizing the extraordinary value of the time we still have?

Perhaps the reason a sunset can bring tears to our eyes is because we know it will soon disappear. Perhaps the reason we cherish our children, our spouses, our friends, and even our memories is because we know we cannot hold them forever. Mortality does not diminish the meaning of life. It creates it.

As I have grown older, I have found myself becoming less fearful of life's ending and more appreciative of its moments. I still exercise. I still study. I still write. I still seek to understand. Not because I believe I can stop time, but because I have come to appreciate that time itself is the gift.

I think I approach life much the same way I approach a good meal. I do not rush through it. I savor it. I appreciate the taste, the experience, and the fact that it will not last forever.

Perhaps that is why even a simple cup of coffee, a quiet room, a conversation with someone I love, or an ordinary afternoon can feel so deeply satisfying.

So if you find yourself believing that your best years are behind you, perhaps consider another possibility.

Maybe your greatest gift is not the time you have lost.

Maybe your greatest gift is the time you still have.

And perhaps the gods, if there were such beings, would envy us not because we die, but because only those who know their moments are limited can ever truly learn how to cherish them.

• So take the walk.

• Make the phone call.

• Write the book.

• Learn the language.

• Exercise the body.

• Heal the relationship.

• Drink the coffee slowly.

• Watch the sunset.

• Tell the people you love that you love them.

Because the tragedy of mortality is not that life ends.

The tragedy would be discovering, at the end of life, that we never fully embraced the miracle of being alive while we had the chance.

When Two Become One... Building a Marriage That Can Weather Life

Chapter 15

The Relationships We Witness

Before We Ever Choose Our Own

Long before most people enter into serious relationships of their own, they have already been quietly taught what relationships are supposed to feel like.

Those lessons rarely come through formal instruction. They are absorbed through observation—through watching how parents speak to one another, how conflict is handled, how affection is expressed or withheld, how responsibilities are shared, and how emotional distance either develops or is repaired.

These experiences become the emotional blueprint through which many people later interpret love, marriage, trust, and companionship.

Our expectations in relationships are deeply shaped by what we experienced growing up, but just as importantly, they are shaped by what we lacked. Human beings do not only carry memories into adulthood; they also carry absences.

A missing father, an emotionally unavailable mother, a parent who died too early, or a household marked by emotional coldness can create longings that quietly follow a person for decades. Sometimes those longings are obvious. Other times they operate beneath conscious awareness, influencing expectations in ways the individual does not fully understand.

A person who grew up without affirmation may desperately crave reassurance in adulthood. Someone who rarely experienced physical affection may either hunger intensely for closeness or feel deeply uncomfortable receiving it. Another person may have learned that emotional distance is normal because distance was all they ever witnessed. What feels unnatural to one person may feel entirely familiar to another.

This is one reason relationships can become so complicated even between two people who genuinely care about one another. They are not entering the relationship empty-handed. They are arriving with emotional histories, learned expectations, wounds, assumptions, and subconscious definitions of what love is supposed to look like.

In some households, children grow up witnessing tenderness, compromise, patience, and emotional security. In others, they grow up around conflict, abandonment, silence, resentment, or instability. Many experience a complicated mixture of both. Yet whatever environment becomes familiar during childhood often feels emotionally “normal” later in life, even when it is unhealthy.

Children naturally interpret family situations through limited understanding. When one parent leaves or becomes absent, the child may unconsciously create a simple narrative in order to make emotional sense of the pain. One parent becomes the hero. The other becomes the villain.

The remaining parent may receive deep sympathy and emotional loyalty from the child, while the absent parent becomes associated with betrayal, rejection, or failure. Over time, these emotional conclusions can quietly shape adult behavior in ways the individual never intended.

A son who grew up with an emotionally distant father may unconsciously repeat that same emotional absence in his own relationships. He may physically remain present while emotionally withdrawing because that pattern feels familiar and therefore comfortable.

A daughter who witnessed instability or abandonment may carry intense fears of rejection into adulthood, seeking constant reassurance or placing unrealistic expectations on a partner to fill emotional voids that began long before the relationship itself.

In many cases, people are not truly asking their partner to simply love them. They are asking that person to heal unresolved grief, compensate for missing affection, repair childhood wounds, or recreate fantasies of what they believe family should have been. This creates enormous pressure within relationships because no human being can fully satisfy emotional needs rooted in an entire lifetime of unmet expectations.

Fantasy becomes dangerous when it replaces reality. Many people develop idealized images of relationships based not on healthy examples, but on emotional longing. A child raised by a struggling single parent may spend years imagining that if the missing parent had stayed, life would have been perfect.

Yet healthy relationships are not built on fantasy. Real relationships involve compromise, misunderstanding, forgiveness, patience, sacrifice, emotional maturity, and mutual responsibility. They involve two imperfect human beings learning how to function together honestly over time.

This is where emotional imbalance often enters relationships. One individual may come from a highly affectionate, emotionally expressive household, while the other grew up in emotional silence.

One may expect constant verbal reassurance while the other believes love is demonstrated primarily through responsibility and provision. Neither individual is necessarily malicious. They are often functioning according to emotional systems they learned long before they met each other.

At the same time, not all inherited patterns are negative. Healthy households also pass down valuable emotional strengths. Some people enter adulthood with deeply rooted examples of stability, accountability, tenderness, patience, loyalty, and emotional consistency.

These patterns become strengths they naturally carry into marriage and family life. The difficulty often arises when two people with vastly different emotional foundations attempt to build a life together without recognizing how differently they learned to interpret relationships themselves.

Children also absorb conflict styles from their parents. Some grow up witnessing arguments handled with calm discussion and resolution. Others grow up watching explosive conflict, manipulation, avoidance, or emotional shutdowns.

Over time, these patterns become internalized assumptions about how disagreements are supposed to function. A person may sincerely believe their behavior is normal simply because it was repeatedly modeled throughout childhood.

One of the most difficult realities to accept is that deeply learned behaviors can feel emotionally correct even when they are destructive. Human beings often defend familiar dysfunction because familiarity creates a sense of psychological safety. The subconscious mind frequently chooses what is known over what is healthy.

This is why awareness matters so much. Healthy relationships are not built merely on attraction or chemistry. They require self-examination. They require the humility to ask where certain expectations came from, why certain reactions feel automatic, and whether inherited patterns are helping or harming the relationship being built in the present.

No relationship will ever be perfect because no human being is perfect. Yet healthy relationships become possible when two individuals recognize that love is not simply emotional instinct. It is also awareness, growth, responsibility, and the willingness to confront the patterns that shaped them before those patterns quietly shape the future of the relationship itself.

Take a Moment With This

• What did the relationships you witnessed as a child teach you about love, conflict, trust, or emotional closeness?

• Are there expectations you place on others today that may actually come from unresolved experiences in your past?

• Which parent’s emotional patterns do you find yourself identifying with most strongly, even in subtle ways?

• Have you ever expected another person to heal emotional wounds that began long before you met them?

• What healthy relationship qualities from your upbringing deserve more appreciation and intentional continuation in your own life?

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A Simple Exercise

Spend a few quiet moments writing down three relationship behaviors you witnessed repeatedly growing up. Beside each one, write whether it created emotional stability or emotional strain in your life. Then reflect honestly on whether you are currently repeating, resisting, or healing those same patterns in your own relationships today.

How do I express how important this book is to folks who are daily inundated with "products?" I'll simply be sharing each chapter as a blog on this website, and I'll post them to Facebook.

I really, really believe this is so important to folks in marriages, contemplating marriage, dating, contemplating dating, or simply thinking about getting back into the game.

The book itself is on Amazon (  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1WQYTDJ  ) but I'll be presenting (in order ) each of the 50 chapters here daily .