Episode Details

Episode 185 — What If the Person You Love Isn’t the Person You Married?

The person you married is going to disappear. And so are you.

That sounds terrifying—until you realize it may be exactly what marriage was supposed to be.

This Sunday, Kat and I celebrate 40 years of marriage. And after four decades together, I can say with certainty that I'm not married to the same woman I married in 1986. She's changed.

So, have I.

Children change us. Success and failure change us. Death changes us. Our bodies change. Sex changes. Faith changes. The things we fear change. Even the things we once believed with absolute certainty can change.

But what happens when two people don't change at the same speed—or even in the same direction?

In Episode 185 of Crusade With Me, I wrestle with what it means to love a person who is continually becoming someone new. Maybe the goal of marriage isn't to keep your spouse exactly as they were when you said, “I do.” Maybe it's remaining curious enough to keep discovering who they're becoming.

Because after forty years, maybe forever isn't simply a measure of time.

Maybe forever is a decision made thousands of times:

Stay. Listen. Forgive. Apologize. Touch. Laugh. Try again. Ask the uncomfortable question.

And sometimes look at the person beside you and say:

“Tell me who you are now.”

Maybe marriage isn't spending your entire life loving the person you married.

Maybe it's spending your entire life meeting them again.