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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, this week my wife and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
Before I started dating Kari I was dating a girl I’ll call Andrea. She was two years younger than me and a senior in high school at the time. We met at church, and we eventually started working together at the bookstore, so we saw each other quite a bit. Andrea was a great young woman, passionate about her Christian faith, and helped me grow quite a bit in my spiritual maturity.
We dated for around a year. Sometime around the time she was getting ready to or had just graduated, she started putting pressure on me to talk to her dad about marriage. To me, we were not near the stage of seriously considering marriage, so I dragged my feet. Plus, I was really intimidated by her dad.
I don’t think she was motivated by a desire to get married as much as she was motivated by a desire to get out of the control of her parents. Her parents weren’t abusive in any way, but they were controlling, at least from her point of view. She kept on me, so eventually I gave in.
One night while we were hanging out at her house, her dad was out in the driveway working on one of their cars. She knew it was the perfect chance to talk with him one-on-one without anyone else hearing our conversation and urged me to go out there. So I did.
After a few minutes of small talk, I finally got the nerve to say something. I tried to be vague enough to let him know I wasn’t thinking of marriage right away. So I think I said something like, “Andrea and I have been talking about maybe getting married at some point in the future.”
He stopped his work, put his tools down, and turned to face me. He looked me in the eye and said, “That’s not gonna happen. You come from a family of divorce, therefore you’re destined for divorce. Therefore, you’re not fit to marry my daughter.”
That may not be a word-for-word quote, but it’s pretty close. I expected him to shoot down any ideas of marriage. But I expected that to be due to her age, our needing to date longer, or something like that. I never expected him to completely discredit me because my parents had divorced.
At the end of the summer, Andrea moved out of state to go to college. She broke up with me right before moving away. By the time she moved back the following year, I was dating Kari.
I didn’t hold any hard feelings toward her. In fact, Kari and I did a few double and triple dates with some mutual friends and Andrea and her boyfriend. He and I would also play golf together nearly every week. We even had Andrea’s little sister as the flower girl in our wedding.
But that comment from her dad? That’s one of those comments that hit me at my core and sticks with me to this day.
Perhaps if Andrea and I would have stayed together he and I would have had a more serious conversation about marriage where he would have asked me questions about my view on it, why or if I felt like I wouldn’t end up like my parents. But that never happened.
I don’t know why my parents divorced. I have some theories, but I’ve never asked either of them. To me, it doesn’t matter. I feel quite confident about one of my theories, and that’s enough for me.
But what has always bothered me the most about that conversation is that rather than consider that I might be more resolved to not have my marriage end in divorce because I’d been the victim of it, he assumed I was bound to the same destination as my parents simply because they’d taken the path of divorce.
Now here I am 26 years into my marriage. Kari and I are as happy and as solidly connected as we’ve ever been. And in case you’re wondering, Andrea and her husband will celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary in August.
Here’s what I learned.
We are not destined to repeat the sins and mistakes of our parents. Marriage is not easy. Adding kids into the mix makes it even more challenging. It’s not surprising that between two-thirds and one-half of all marriages in the US end in divorce. If your marriage has ended in divorce, I’m not over here feeling superior or judging you in any way shape or form. That’s not my role.
So having said all of that, here are what I believe are five key ingredients to a successful marriage, plus a bonus ingredient.
Ingredient one, Finances. Financial conflict is often a major source of tension in marriages. Early in our relationship, Kari’s parents gifted us attendance at a Dave Ramsey conference, which proved invaluable in shaping our financial future together. The conference not only taught us practical money management skills but also sparked important conversations about our financial values and goals.
Most couples include one saver and one spender – in our case, Kari is the saver and I’m the spender. Given this dynamic, she manages our finances, though we collaborate on budgeting decisions and both commit to following them.
Despite being the primary breadwinner throughout our marriage, I’ve never considered the money “mine.” We view our finances as belonging first to God, and then to us as a couple. We maintain joint checking and savings accounts, making all financial decisions as a team. As Dave Ramsey wisely notes, married couples who keep separate finances aren’t really a team – they’re just roommates wearing wedding rings. This philosophy has served as the foundation of our financial partnership and continues to strengthen our marriage.
Ingredient two, Parenting. Parenting differences can be a major source of marital conflict, second only to finances. Before engagement, we discussed crucial parenting decisions like family size and discipline approaches. These early conversations helped establish a unified framework for raising our children.
We agreed that maintaining parental authority was essential – our household would be parent-led, not child-led. We implemented clear rules: whining automatically meant “no,” and children had to disclose if they’d already asked the other parent about a request. This prevented them from playing parents against each other for favorable answers.
When disagreements arose between us about parenting decisions, we discussed them privately. If I said no and Kari disagreed, she would share her perspective privately, and we’d reach a resolution together. If we changed our initial decision, we explained our reasoning to the children, but never undermined each other’s authority.
This united approach was crucial because allowing children to drive wedges between parents can destroy marriages. Once children leave home, couples who’ve allowed such division often find themselves essentially separated, making divorce almost inevitable. Maintaining a strong marital foundation must remain the priority.
Ingredient three, Respect. I hear that respect is one of the major issues for men. That is, if they don’t feel respected, then all sorts of issues and conflict arise from it. I don’t disagree with that at all. Men certainly do need to feel respected. However, to only see this as a man’s need is an error. Women must be respected too, and your kids need to see an example of a man respecting a woman.
The framework I mentioned about parenting is based on mutual respect. Telling your kids “your mom said no, therefore the answer is no” is all about showing respect for your spouse and establishing them as the authority.
Respect also means you don’t talk badly about your spouse in front of your kids, your family, your co-workers, or anyone else. It means you don’t belittle them, call them names, or yell at them.
Respect means you show up on time, are present at events, pull your own weight around the house, thank them openly for the everyday things, and put their needs above your own.
Ingredient four, Conflict Resolution.Conflict is inevitable in any relationship. Our children have mentioned they’ve never seen us fight, which has mixed implications. While it’s unfortunate they haven’t witnessed conflict resolution firsthand, it reflects our commitment to handling disagreements without shouting or emotional outbursts.
Neither Kari nor I have ever raised our voices at each other, recognizing that yelling doesn’t solve problems. Though I initially struggled with this approach when parenting, Kari’s guidance helped me extend this principle to interactions with our children as well.
We definitely experience conflicts, but we’ve learned that letting emotions drive our responses only escalates situations and leads to regrettable words or actions. Instead, we follow a simple process: take time to cool off (even if it means going to bed angry), then address the issue with honesty and respect once emotions have settled.
This approach has helped us avoid major confrontations and create an environment conducive to healthy dialogue and conflict resolution. By managing disagreements calmly and respectfully, we’ve maintained a peaceful household while still addressing important issues.
And ingredient five, Household Management. In short, this means we all do our part. I do laundry, so does Kari. Kari cooks, and so do I. She takes out the trash, and I do too. We pick up after ourselves and tell each other how much we appreciate what they do. This is another way we show respect. Kari is not my maid nor my mother. She is my teammate, my partner.
Kari and I both wanted deeply for her to be able to stay home and be a full-time mom. As our kids grew older, part of this ingredient meant communicating to them about the role each of us play. Kari is not their maid either. Not only that, but I knew she did a lot of things around the house that could easily go unnoticed.
Several times I have honored my wife by making sure the kids understood how hard she worked to manage our home, keep them fed, manage our finances, and do all that is required to keep a home running. This goes back to the importance of respect and teaching respect to your kids. Much conflict arises due to a lack of respect.
Now for that bonus ingredient, Faith. For Kari and I, our faith is central to our marriage. This was a no-compromise essential for each of us before we ever met. Second Corinthians 6:14 teaches that believers should not be equally yoked with non-believers, so we both made it a priority to find a life partner that was not only a believer, but was also as devout in their faith as the other person was.
We each also considered other verses that said, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” and “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” These are principles that, when applied to a marriage partnership, allowed it to be resilient.
We have tried to understand what the New Testament teaches about a healthy marriage, and build our lives upon those teachings.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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