Life Choices | March 2025

Dear Friends,

My husband and I just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. I have been reflecting a lot on our relationship. It hasn’t always been easy. In fact, it’s probably been more challenging than it’s been “easy” these past 21 years.

As crazy as it sounds, I just learned something new about my husband that I never realized before. If you’re wondering how I can just be learning something about someone I’ve lived with for 21 years, your guess is as good as mine

I resort to the fact that God is in control and He times everything exactly as He planned. Over the years I have participated in my fair share of various personality and behavioral assessments. Most recently as I have been studying the art of negotiation, I was introduced to another personality assessment that highlighted 3 different personality types: Accommodator, Assertive & Analyst.

For those of you wondering, what I learned was that Rob is more of an Analyst than he is an Assertive. What I mean by that is for over 20 years I would get SO upset with Rob because he’d ask me something about a particular subject in 5 or 6 different ways. I used to accuse him of not hearing me and get mad because I felt like he was trying to manipulate my response. Meaning, he didn’t like my answer so he’d continue to ask me in 5-6 different ways until I relented and responded in a way that was agreeable to him. I cannot tell you how many fights this caused which inevitably ended in hurt feelings. Perhaps you can relate? I viewed this as him being an Assertive because of this interaction.

An Analyst, by nature, wants to collect as much information as possible to ensure he doesn’t misunderstand anything. Analysts hate to make a mistake and they want to get to the “right answer.” Naturally, from this perspective, Rob was actually just trying to make sure he understood exactly where I was coming from. Why on God’s green earth did it take me this long to understand this about him?

Here’s what I’ve deducted. Life is about choices. Don’t get me wrong, there have been a handful of times I wanted to run away out of pure frustration - sometimes it just felt “too hard” and I didn’t feel seen or heard. At times it felt like we would never be able to bridge that gap. However, I chose to stay.

Conversely, there were times, I’m certain, that Rob wanted to run away, too, but he chose to stay. Life is about choices.

This little revelation I learned about my husband has given me hope and I’m more excited than ever to not only stay but to see what else I learn about him and about myself that I may have just misunderstood or misinterpreted.

I think we live in a society where a lot of people think the grass is greener on the other side and the best or “easiest” thing to do is leave and find someone new. What if the grass isn’t greener and all God is calling us to do is nurture and water the grass that we’ve been given? In doing so, we learn new tools and skills to be better gardeners as it were.

I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. And, perhaps, I’m biased regarding the premise of watering the grass you’ve been given since I grew up in a family absent of any male role models. I know, first hand, how awful and damaging that scenario is. So, I’m grateful, every day, that we both choose to stay, especially in a world where so much of the messaging is, “You do you” and “do what makes you happy.”

For me, I’m thankful to God for showing me that the juice is worth the squeeze. I want to squeeze every ounce of what I can get from my marriage and, quite frankly, from whatever relationships God has called me to.

What about you? What choices are you making? Is the grass really greener or do we need to water & nurture the grass we’ve been given?

Here’s to choosing wisely,

Rica