Walking the Same Path

August 6, 2012

This week is our 16th wedding anniversary. One thing I get asked sometimes is how Damien and I arrived on the same page with so many of our life choices - adventurous living, parenting, homeschooling, etc.

Damien and I have been committed with our whole hearts to each other from the beginning. We take our marriage vows very seriously. But those marriage vows did not guarantee that we would make two separate lives into one. That two very independent minded people could build a common vision.

It seems to me there are two ways to live married life. With the first model you can walk separate, sometimes parallel paths and come together at various points on the journey. You might make an effort to reach the same destination but you walk different trails to get there.

The benefit of this model is less accountability to your partner because you've both decided to do your own thing in certain areas. Of course, you also run the risk of veering so far from each other that you never do arrive at the same destination.

The second model is how we have aimed to live married life. The majority of our journeying is done together, on the same path.

We sometimes will walk alone on the little paths or side trails that shoot off the main path, but that is only for a short time and for a clear purpose. Walking the same path is the goal. For us, this translates into having a common life vision and direction, completely shared income, similar core values, accountability to each other for how we spend our days, shared interests, and parenting on the same page, to name just a few.

Although we're on the same path, we have very different roles in how we earn an income, manage our home, and raise and educate our kids. We have different secondary interests and also very different personalities.

How do we bring this all together to walk the same path, towards a common vision, instead of walking our own paths and risk walking away from each other?

Click here to head over to Outsideways to read three very practical things we've done in our marriage to bring our paths together.