Mark The Day. Then Listen.
This year, my 18th wedding anniversary and Father's Day fall on the same day.
Lindsey and I got married on June 21, 2008, and Father's Day usually lands somewhere near it, but this year they happen to be on the same Sunday in June.
After a bit of research, I realized that this has already happened three times since Ava was born, and won’t happen again until 2037, but when two days that already carry weight in your life happen to land on the same day, there's an invitation to actually slow down and notice what they represent individually (and collectively). For many of us (myself included), there is a tendency to get caught up in the commercialization of days like this, and if we’re not careful, we can let each of these calendar markers come and go without ever really sitting with them for longer than the day they arrive. And that's part of what I want to push against in this essay.
So this isn't a sentimental essay. But it's also not a heavy one. It's a reflection on what 18 years of marriage and my time as both a son and a father have actually taught me, and what those lessons might mean for you, wherever you are.
What 18 Years of Marriage Has Given Me
Let me just start by ripping the bandaid off. I'm not going to pretend I've figured marriage out. 18 years in, I'm still learning, still making mistakes, still discovering blind spots I didn't know I had.
But there are a few things that have become clear to me, and I want to share them as a fellow traveler who's still walking the road and trying to get better every day.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the type of love that holds up over decades is not the kind that movies sell. It's not constant butterflies, and it's not perfect alignment on every single thing. It's the slow accumulation of choosing the same person again and again, especially in the moments when it would be easier not to. It’s paying attention to the parts of marriage that create friction, and working through those issues to help us learn more about ourselves and about our spouse. It’s not trying to win arguments just for the sake of being right, but having difficult conversations that help the relationship grow deeper roots.
While that’s certainly not everything I’ve learned, most of the other learnings stem from something in that list above. None of these insights are unique to me. They’re just observations from my own marriage, with the hope that I will continue to grow as a husband, and help others to do the same in their marriages.
So if you're married, I hope some of this resonates. If you've been divorced, the lessons still apply, just in a different direction. What you've learned can shape how you show up in the relationships you have now, including with your kids if you have them. If you're single, this is preparation in real time. The posture you build in your current relationships is the posture you'll bring into marriage if that's where you're headed.
Marriage has given me more than I've earned, and I’m grateful for the ups and downs of each passing year. I’m truly a better man because I met and married Lindsey. That's the honest truth of it, and I want to continue to steward this privilege of marriage well for however many more years of life that I have.
Fatherhood, In Both Directions
Father's Day works the same way for me. It's a day to celebrate, yes. But it's also a day to reflect on what fatherhood has taught me, both as a dad to my daughter Ava and as a son to my own dad.
I’ve learned that being a dad requires a backbone and a solid foundation that doesn't waver, but for many years in my parenthood journey I confused that with being either too rigid (a drill sergeant version of leadership) or too permissive (avoiding the harder calls because you want to be liked). What I've slowly learned is that real fathering is leading with love through conviction, even when the easy path looks more comfortable. It means saying the hard things gently. It means being firm about what matters and flexible about what doesn't. And it means being present, which is harder than it sounds. Not just spending time. Actually being there in the time you're spending. Looking up from your phone. Listening with your whole face. Letting your kid see that they have your full attention, not just your proximity.
My dad and I have a good relationship. We always have, at the core of it. But it's had its ebbs and flows, especially after my parents divorced when I was in high school, and there were tensions that healed over time but were never really discussed. If I could go back, I'd want my dad to have been more honest and open about his own struggles, mistakes, and what he was learning along the way.
What I've noticed since becoming a dad myself is that this isn't unique to my own dad. A lot of men I know acknowledge their learnings quietly to themselves (or maybe with one or two other guys), but rarely say them out loud to their kids. They process privately and then move on. And what gets lost in that silence is the gift those learnings could have been to the people who needed them most.
That's the gap I want to close in my own role as a dad. Saying out loud what I'm learning. Naming when I've gotten something wrong. Letting my daughter see that her dad is still in formation too, which gives her permission to be honest about her own.
Whether your own dad is alive or not, present or absent, easy to talk to or difficult, you have a relationship to fatherhood in some form, and it shapes you whether you've examined it or not.
So steward that relationship well.
Days Like These Are Worth Paying Attention To
My anniversary and Father’s Day are gifts, and I want to be clear about that. They're days to genuinely celebrate what these relationships mean and how they’ve grown me as a man.
But they're also reminders.
While you may have never considered this, anniversaries and days like Father’s Day are often taken for granted because the relationships that provide the reason for the occasion feel permanent. And yet, the very stability that makes them valuable is what creates the environment for us to treat them as commonplace every other day of the year. The version of these relationships you have today is not guaranteed to look the same tomorrow. People change, people age, and people die, and the version of attentiveness that worked five years ago might not be enough now.
So on this Father's Day or on your next anniversary, mark the day, celebrate it, and be grateful for it. But don’t stop with just the celebration and gratitude. Ask yourself where those relationships could improve. What could you be more intentional about? Where have you noticed drift? What are you doing on autopilot in these relationships?
Pay attention to whatever surfaces. Your life is already speaking in the relationships with your spouse, your kids, and your parents.
This year, listen to what it's saying.
