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I think for many years of our marriage I took her support for granted. By that I mean that I expected her support because we were married. I remember our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. As it approached I decided not to get her anything because we were married and I thought the day was for those who were trying to win someone's love and not for those who had already won the love of their life. She was already mine, I did not feel that I needed to do anything to keep it that way. I just expected that she already knew it so why did I need to show it. I remember feeling so bad for being so insensitive to her. Of course she forgave me. She always does. Since that first Valentine's Day I have always given her two dozen roses. One for the current year and one for the year I missed.

Love is a very interesting emotion. Of course I speak today of the intimate type of love between a husband and a wife. When a marriage is healthy, it is one of the true sources of happiness. Life to me would be quite meaningless without Stacy. She believes in me in a way that no one else ever has. 

When we were dating, she told me that she was dating me because she my true potential. I don't think I can describe how that made me feel. Not only could she see me for who I currently was, but she also saw who I could become. That she could see that, made me want to be my very best. It made me want to reach for my potential. She inspired me to be my very best. I remember fighting to win her love. There was nothing that I would not do to be with her and to have her by my side. I wanted to be with her for the rest of my eternity. I was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen. I wanted her to love me in the same way that I loved her. 

When I was young and in love it was easy to reach to be my best. As the years passed, the faithful and constant nature of my relationship with Stacy made it easy for me to believe it would always be there and as a result I sometimes gave our relationship less attention than it deserves. The love we feel when we are falling in love sometimes appears to be more intense and urgent than the love we feel when we are maintaining a relationship. I don't think it is really that way, but I know that it feels that way. I know that when I am on the road and away from Stacy I feel the love that I have for her more intensely than when I am home. It seems kind of weird, but absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

It is not enough to feel these emotions. When I keep them to myself, they are useless. I need to give them a voice. Many times while I am away, I will think of how much I love Stacy and say to myself that I need to tell her the next time we speak. Because I think about it in those moments, it sometimes feels like I have already told her, so I forget to tell her when I see her. I need to remember to communicate the immense love that I have for her and I need to do it much more often than I currently do. I need to honor her and support her. She always wants to know how I am doing and how whatever event I have been to went. She is much more thoughtful of me than I am of her. I am working on becoming more like her. It is interesting to me that after 20 years, she still sees my potential and I still feel inspired by her to be a better man. Love is a many splendid thing. The question I most enjoyed Barack Obama asking yesterday was – "How good looking is my wife?" I feel the same way about Stacy and can honestly say that I have never known a more beautiful woman. 

Nearly all of the literature on marriage these days is about what a couple needs to do when it gets in trouble. Consequently, the institution of marriage is in trouble. Our divorce rates are up, and many people are deciding not to get married. When people do get married they have very few healthy models to follow. Most of the research conducted is focused on the break-ups and what caused those marriages to dissolve. I can't think of anything more meaningless than to have so much knowledge on why marriages fail and so little knowledge on why they succeed. We need to know more about successful marriages and why those marriages succeed.

I want people to know what makes a marriage succeed. I am working on a short video documentary on successful marriages. I am going to interview people who are in successful marriages and ask them to reveal the secrets of their success. I am working on a list of questions to use for the interview. If you have any questions you would like me to ask, please send them to me.  If you would like to be interviewed, please let me know. I think this will be an interesting project. I am excited to study this a bit and learn more about it.  

Ask yourself today, "who do you love?" Then ask, "how do they know?" It may be time for you to show the one you love just a little bit more attention. Life is great when we recognize we are in love. A faithful and constant relationship gets better and better as we age. 

Life is Good!

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P.S. I Love You Stacy – Thanks for being who you are