If You Want Your Marriage to Grow, You Have to Grow Too

Another installment of the series: Things I’ve Learned in the First Quarter of Middle Age (That I Probably Should’ve Already Known).

When my wife and I got married, our church required us to go through some pre-marriage counseling.

We met one of the deacons for dinner at Texas Roadhouse and talked about all the “big things”—kids, money, faith. We filled out a few surveys to see if we really knew each other. We even drove four hours to attend an all-day workshop about communication, love languages, and expectations.

So I felt prepared. I thought we’d covered everything worth covering before we said I do.

But there’s one thing no one ever told us… all that stuff we talked about at Texas Roadhouse, all the answers on those surveys, all the exercises at that seminar, could change.

My wife’s feelings could change.
Mine could too.

And that’s not a warning, it’s an invitation.

Because you can’t be the same man at 45 that you were at 25 and expect your relationship to feel alive.
Stagnant husbands create stale marriages.

When you’ve been together for years, the relationship naturally shifts. You’ve seen each other through moves and job changes, kids and chaos, seasons of joy and exhaustion. Somewhere along the way, “How was your day?” becomes more habit than curiosity.

You stop discovering each other because you assume you already know everything there is to know.

But here’s the truth: she’s not the same woman you married, and that’s a good thing. She’s grown through her own experiences, victories, and losses. And if you’re not growing too, the space between who you both were and who you both are only widens.

Growth doesn’t mean reinventing yourself or chasing a self-help plan. It means staying curious. It means asking better questions. Listening longer. Admitting when something isn’t working anymore. It’s realizing that “we’ve always done it this way” is rarely a good reason to keep doing it.

Growth looks like humility—the kind that admits you don’t always have it figured out.
It looks like presence—the kind that keeps showing up even when things feel repetitive.
It looks like staying in it when things feel off, because you believe in what’s on the other side.

The men who keep growing, individually and together, end up rediscovering connection over and over again.
The ones who don’t end up living next to someone they used to know.

Stay curious.
Stay humble.
Stay in it.

Campfire Gentleman × Catholic Coffee Giveaway

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If that kind of purpose resonates with you, take a minute to visit CatholicCoffee.com and see what they’re brewing.
Or forward this email to a friend who could use a little meaning with their morning cup. ☕

P.S. I’d rather grow Campfire Gentleman through real connections than algorithms. If something here resonated with you, forward it to one friend who might enjoy it too. That simple act helps more than you know—and keeps me off the social media hamster wheel.