Log Cabin Sundays, 6/8/2025

In Which I Dispense Some Unsolicited Marriage Advice

I made the joke once that you can tell what state my mental health is in by how much I post online. If I’m feeling really good, I will post a lot because I’m feeling creative. If I’m absolutely depressed, I will post a lot because I’m trying to seek dopamine through external validation. If I’m doing just OK, I’ll post a lot because I’m bored. I hope this helps.

This is all a set-up to say that I wasn’t able to stay off social media on Saturday. It was never the goal, but a few months into this experiment I was enjoying Sundays so much I added Saturdays. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m doing well or because I’m not, but Saturday I just wanted to be online with everyone.

It was a silly decision because even though I posted a lot, it didn’t amount to much because I think other people were doing things on Saturday besides scrolling so it wasn’t worth it. One lives, one learns. I’ve heard that somewhere.

I’m in a Sims phase again, which happens from time to time where the only game I want to play is the Sims and the only leisure activity I want to pursue is manipulating those little people around. When I’m in this phase I can’t help but think of myself as one, and I think that I had a lot of moodlets that were low, and I tried to fill them up with phone. Big whiff there.

In spite of being a disappointing social media day, Saturday was really fun. We hit up yard sales again, went to two art museums, and got a little treat. We finished up our John Wick marathon in anticipation of seeing Ballerina, which means that in under a week I watched 439 stuntmen pretend to perish on screen; their character’s hopes and dreams stylishly snuffed out like a boy scout campfire being peed to death.

Sunday was our anniversary. We went for a long walk and then we dressed up nice and made chicken pot pie together. Kristin pointed out that it was a fitting meal for the day because it’s a good emblem of why we’ve worked for so long. We complement each other. Kristin bakes and I cook. She makes a perfect pie crust and I make a lovely filling. We went to the movies. This week, as part of the week-long anniversary celebration, we will be seeing They Might Be Giants in concert.

During my volunteer work a couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a 23-year old and she asked what the secret was to a successful marriage. The best I could come up with is keep growing, take care of each other, and be interested in what they’re interested in. I’ve thought about it since and have some more ideas.

None of this following advice applies if your relationship is coercive, physically and/or emotionally abusive, or controlling. If any of those apply to you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is a good place to start, just ensure that you’re accessing it from a place where you have digital privacy.

I’ve seen marriages fail for a lot of reasons. I can’t speak to any of this from the inside and don’t want to come across as judging anyone. I am firmly pro-divorce when things aren’t working out. For all my divorced friends, I absolutely love this journey for you. I see your glow-ups and I’m here for it. It’s wild and unrealistic to think that every marriage should last for 50 years. But it’s what people hope for when they get started, so whatever experience I have so far I’m happy to share.

From an outside observer’s standpoint, the successes and failures come out of growth. You either both grow together in enough of the same direction to make it so that your grown up versions are still in sync, you grow at the same time but in different directions, or one of you keeps growing while the other stagnates.

For that middle category, a long-term relationship can fall apart and nobody is really to blame. It’s just a thing that ran its course. Be glad for the good parts and look forward to what’s next. I’ve seen it happen with religion, where one falls away from the church they grew up in and the other stays; it happens with politics; it happens with financial goals and priorities for the future; it happens with parenting. It’s sad but it’s fine, I think. In that sense being with someone for a long time is as much about luck as it is skill. I have no secret code.

For the rest of it, it’s just like anything else. If you want to succeed at work, you keep learning new skills. Even if they don’t pay you more for the new skills you develop there’s a need to keep up just to stay relevant. It’s also what keeps things interesting. Don’t think of a partnership as something you worked hard for once and coast on for the next half a century. It’s like a house. Even when the bones are rock-solid, you still need to do repairs and upgrades to make it function in the current decade.

Sometimes codes change and what was an acceptable structure decades ago isn’t up to code anymore. New information says your insulation is toxic or whatever. Get rid of it. Are there expectations there that weren’t there in the years you got married? Adapt to them. Maybe you never saw your dad do the dishes. Dads do dishes now. It’s 2025. Stay up to code, my man. This is like barely legal requirements now (continuing the house metaphor), and should have been the whole time.

Learn from your mistakes, talk to each other about stuff. Remember that if you are with a complete person who likes their own company, you are not competing against other potential partners, you’re competing against their life without you. If by removing you from it, their life will get easier and more interesting, they probably should do that. Why wouldn’t they?

That’s the best advice I have. Take a look at things today. If there’s bumpy spots in the past or great spots in the past those should be taken into account, but the most important thing to think about is if you are making your partner’s life better today. Maybe it feels transactional, and I don’t think that in general human being shouldn’t have to justify their existence. But it’s silly to think we shouldn’t be conscious about our place in someone’s life if we expect them to keep us there. If you aren’t providing the same level of value that a pet cat or dog does, it’s time to reevaluate.

Anyway that’s what I thought a lot about this log cabin sunday. This is what I listened to, watched, and read:

CDs I got at a yard sale & listened to while going to other yard sales:

AWOLNATION, Megalithic Symphony

Of Monsters and Men, My Head is an Animal

Fun., Some Nights

Record I got as an anniversary gift:

Ethel Cain, Preacher’s Daughter

Records I already had:

Noah Kahan: Stick Season

Oingo Boingo, Boingo Alive

Watched: John Wick 4, Ballerina

Reading: Antidote by Karen Russell

Played:

The Sims 4

Castlevania, Symphony of the Night (Playstation 1)

Harvest Moon (Super Nintendo)