Our Story - Looking At My Own Marriage
Marriage is beautiful—but let’s be honest—it’s also messy, complicated, and downright hard sometimes. My wife and I have been married for over 30 years, and while that sounds like an accomplishment (and it is), those three decades weren’t all candlelit dinners and weekend getaways.
We married young—18 and 20. I was a Marine and statistically speaking, we had a few things stacked against us from day one: young marriage, military life, low finances. We almost didn’t make it through the first year.
We were married on a Saturday, and by Monday, I was back on base. A few weeks later, I was assigned to a new duty station, and it wasn’t until four months into our marriage that we finally moved in together. Just three months after that, we were already in trouble—still strangers to each other in many ways, fighting over bills and wondering if we had made a mistake.
On a Monday morning, we were ready to call lawyers. But God had other plans.
A Marine buddy must have sensed something was wrong because he invited us to his church. That Sunday, the pastor preached about “not letting finances and hard situations ruin your joy.” My wife and I sat there stunned, convinced our friend had spilled all our secrets. He hadn’t—it was God intervening at exactly the right time.
The Hard Years That Followed
That moment kept us together, but it didn’t fix everything. We still struggled—different work schedules, barely any time together, and only Sundays to reconnect. Eventually, we moved back to our hometown and got plugged into a great church, which helped—but even then, life became routine.
Work. Kids. Bills. Sleep. Repeat.
By year seven, we hit another rough patch. I started spending time with a coworker whose marriage was failing. We would gripe about our wives, comparing who “had it worse.” Slowly, I became disconnected from my own marriage, and for the first time, I wondered if there was something better out there.
But my wife—bless her—didn’t give up on me. Through counseling, a lot of hard conversations, and some brutal self-reflection, I broke off that toxic friendship and re-learned what it meant to love my bride.
Learning What Love Really Is
A few years later, God put something big on my heart: to study what “love” really meant—not the fluffy, rom-com kind of love, but the love described in the Bible.
What started as curiosity became a two-year study. I discovered there are five types of love mentioned in Scripture (not the “love languages” you’ve probably heard about—the actual Greek words used in the Bible). That study changed me. It deepened my marriage. And ultimately, it led me to write and publish a book about love and marriage—encouraging couples to remember those dating days when they would do anything to woo each other and to return to that kind of intentional love.
Sickness and Health
Not long after, life threw us another curveball: I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer). If you’ve ever been through cancer—either as the patient or the spouse—you know it doesn’t just hit your body. It hits your marriage.
Suddenly, those wedding vows—for better or worse, in sickness and in health—took on new meaning. There were doctor appointments, treatments, fear, and exhaustion. There were days I felt like a burden. Days she felt helpless.
But we made it through. Not because we’re stronger than anyone else, but because we kept coming back to the same thing: we choose each other.
Thirty Years Later
Here we are now—30 years in. We’ve raised five kids, survived military life, financial struggles, temptation, medical issues, and yes—cancer. And at the end of the day, we can honestly say this:
We are each other’s best friend. There’s no one else in the world we’d rather do life with.
Along the way, we’ve shared our story and created a list of 10 pieces of advice for a strong marriage. These aren’t “tricks.” There’s no magic formula. They’re daily choices—work that each spouse has to commit to. What are they you may ask? That my freinds will be my next post......
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