834 - 30 Questions for 30 Years Together

Stephanie and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary.

Thirty years.

As we thought about how we wanted to mark this milestone, I had the idea of sitting down together with 30 questions designed to help us reflect on the life we have built, the challenges we have navigated, the ways we have changed, and what we have learned about love and partnership along the way.

Neither of us reviewed the questions ahead of time.

That turned out to be part of what made this conversation so meaningful.

Some questions immediately opened the door to stories we had not talked about in years. Some caused us to see our past differently. A few contained assumptions we completely rejected, which led to conversations that were probably more revealing than the questions themselves.

We talked about the two young people who got married 30 years ago and what they understood, and misunderstood, about love.

We reflected on the financial struggles of our early years, including digging through our change jar to buy gasoline with pennies.

We talked about becoming parents, the mistakes we made, the parenting philosophies we eventually rejected, and our realization that we were not simply raising children. We were raising adults.

We revisited the season when I left the insurance business and we went all in on building our own business, including the enormous financial and emotional pressure that decision created.

We talked about how our beliefs have changed, how our understanding of marriage has changed, and how we have learned to give each other the freedom to continue becoming who we are.

One of the themes that emerged throughout the conversation is that neither of us needs the other to remain the person we used to be.

Stephanie is not simply my wife. I am not simply her husband.

Neither of us completes the other because neither of us is incomplete.

Instead, we have created a relationship where we can continue growing, changing, exploring, and becoming while choosing to walk through life together.

There is one phrase from this conversation that may stay with me more than anything else.

Recently, while Stephanie and I were navigating a particularly difficult and emotionally charged situation, I asked her, “Are we good?”

Her response was:

“We’re never not good.”

That phrase captures something about our marriage that I had never been able to articulate quite that way before.

Circumstances change.

Money changes.

Health changes.

Children grow up.

Beliefs evolve.

Careers shift.

Life brings things we could never predict.

But our relationship is not built on those surface-level circumstances.

As we approached the final question, we were asked to imagine sitting together on our 60th wedding anniversary and looking back on the next 30 years. What would need to happen for us to consider that second half of our life extraordinary?

My answer ultimately became very simple.

I have no idea what the next 30 years will bring.

But if I have the opportunity to partner with Stephanie through all of it, that will be extraordinary.

This episode is a special crossover episode of Building a Life and Business Together, The Cliff Ravenscraft Show, and Thriving Mosaic.

I hope our conversation encourages you to think about the relationships, choices, changes, and experiences that are shaping your own life.

And perhaps it will even inspire you to sit down with someone you love and ask a few questions of your own.