Keep Up

It’s inevitable that your partner will change. It’s OK. 

Keep up.

But how? How can you stay close to your spouse throughout the years?

The first time I ever laid eyes on my husband was at a club. He DJ’d there, and I was bowled over by him. He had just moved to my hometown three months earlier and his full time job was as Music Director and On Air Personality at our local radio station.  He had graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Television and Radio, and had worked at a few radio stations in New York. The radio station here was a move up for him and, in his mind, just another stop along the way in his radio career.  This small-town eighteen year old girl was quite enamored by his hekka skills, and I loved listening to him on the air. I liked things just like they were. I didn’t realize at the time that how to stay close to your spouse throughout the years would become more and more important as time went along.

We had dated six or seven months, and he asked me to go to a car show with him. This show is held every year in our city’s convention center, and has its finest cars on display. By this time, I knew that he liked cars, but up until that point, I had no understanding of how significant they were to him. I learned later that he had always loved cars. His mom told me that when she pushed him in his stroller, he spent the whole time bent over sideways watching its wheels go around.  And by now, I have heard about the first time, at age eleven with his brother, that he saw funny cars at Niagara International Dragway. He still tells the story with stars in his eyes! As a teenager, he owned a 1969 Chevelle, but gave it up for something “more practical” for college life.

But I didn’t know these stories then. In his young man’s mind, there was no career in drag racing, so he had put it aside for another dream. I was a Car Girl; I had a ’64 Chevy Impala SS Convertible that I drove everywhere. So, off we went to the car show.

Aaaaaand – he promptly bought a beautiful Corvette show car on display at the convention center. Whoa. This would change our lives.

Everything started to revolve around our cars. We joined a local car club, became engulfed in the local car scene and culture and made lifelong friends. Bobby went on to change careers a few times – but the car thing – well, that just grew and grew. And grew.

He began racing that Corvette and eventually replaced it with a more race-focused Chevy Nova. He was very good at racing. I mean verrrrrrry goooood. In fact, so good, that after we were married only a couple of years, I suggested that he make it his career. And so it began.

I’ve always been a Car Girl, but I didn’t know what Drag Racing was until I met him. Oh, I can’t even express the passion and sheer love I developed for cars, this sport and this man.

I was along for the ride. Pun intended. 

He developed into the person God meant for him to be all along, and I had a front row ticket to it all when we:

• Documented our new company name, Vision Statement and Mission Statement.
• Signed on the dotted line for our business loan (gulp).
• Arrived at the local track the very first time he drove a funny car.
• Got the call from the President of a funny car circuit inviting us to join.
• Struggled just to qualify the car for NHRA races.
• Worried about paying the bills.
• Prepared sponsor proposals.
• Spoke at events all over the country about following God and your dreams.
• Won our first Regional race.
• Heard he was voted Driver of the Year.
• Won Indy, The Race Every Drag Racer Dreams Of Winning.
• Lost a ride through no fault of our own.
• Had our first in-car fire.
• Won our first National Race.

I was on board. Full bore.

Now to me. Not as exciting, but noteworthy. When Bobby met me, I was fresh out of cosmetology school. It wasn’t my passion, and I was only so-so at it. It was he who inspired me to go to business college. I’m knee deep in the corporate world today. I’m quite a different person from the girl he met, but he has done nothing but support me. In fact, we moved 100 miles from home for five years because of a job I needed to take to build my career.

The Point

“He’s not the same person I married” or “She’s changed and I just don’t know her anymore” or “we grew apart.” I hear that a lot; don’t you?

Please don’t assume he’ll always be the same person with which you started the journey. Or, that she’ll never have different interests or passions as time travels on.

Now Bobby is Spokesperson and Manager for one of the hottest Classic, Muscle & Custom Vehicle Dealerships in the country. Yes, it’s A Thing. Still pursuing his heart. I lead Quality Assurance and Control in the corporate world. Very different from where we started.

Take time to learn each others’ goals, dreams and future plans. Often.  And help each other get there. Tell them what’s going on in your head, so this discovering goes both ways. If you don’t, you can’t blame them later for not understanding you.

Um, yeah. Of course they’ve changed. It’s…been…ten, twenty, thirty…years.

Do you really want him to act like he’s twenty-five? Do you really expect her dreams to never change? And, wouldn’t that be really boring to live with exactly the same person for thirty long years?

Keep up. Love the person they’re becoming every day. Every hour.

I wrote something else that might help. It’s about purposely creating what you want your relationship to be.

Create The Relationship You Want

If you are having a hard time keeping up or experiencing what I call Marriage Drift, here is what I think is excellent advice from an excellent source, Focus On The Family. I think it helps answer the question, How to stay close to your spouse throughout the years.

https://www.families.org.au/article/marriage-tune