I love the honest and vulnerable comments I sometimes receive in response to my blogs.

Last week, in a response to my blog “Is a Good Marriage Good Enough?” Teresa McNutt Story stated: “This is a great article that really resonated with me. If you have lived it, you know every bit of the untold story. I asked my estranged husband the other day, “Are each of us better people after 18 years together?” And we both knew we were worse versions of ourselves not better ones. I think marriage should make us better versions of ourselves.”

Wow. Wow.

So I asked Ed, my partner of almost 30 years, “Is each of us a better person after all these years together?”

“It depends on how you define ‘better’,” said my logical man.

We discussed what ‘better person’ means to us. Yes, kind, loving, honest…all of those form part of what it means. But bottom line, Ed and I each consider ourselves better because we have learned to be ever more open to growth in our lives, less certain about everything and more willing to listen and learn.

Ed and I then began to explore what aspects of our relationship were most influential in fostering the growth and learning we value so highly.

“It’s because you’re nice to me,” Ed said, laughing.

“Because we never run out of things to talk about?” I offered.

After kidding around for a bit, we came to what we believe are two core attributes that have allowed our union to make us better versions of ourselves: Our marriage has been edgy and safe.

The dictionary defines edgy as agitated, uneasy and prickly. I would say Ed and I, as individuals, are all of these at times. But the edginess in our relationship that promotes growth is the restlessness to try new things, learn new skills, meet new people, try out new versions of ourselves, and explore deep and sometimes difficult questions with each other and with those we hold dear…

…knowing that there’s always a safety net, our enduring love for one another.

I was touched to learn (from their correspondence) that my parents actually planned for a marriage that would make them better people.

My dad was 30 and single when he first went to the remote Chaco of Paraguay as a missionary doctor. Just before leaving his home in Kansas, his brother Herb introduced him to a young nurse, who came from “good Mennonite stock.” They began corresponding by mail, their letters during the 1940s taking months to reach one another. After a year and a half of courtship-by-mail, they were engaged, he returned to the U.S. to marry my mother, and they returned as missionaries to Paraguay the day after their wedding.

I have their remarkable love letters. He wrote that he believed marriage to her would make him a better, more pious God-loving person. She wrote that marriage to him would make her a better person by opening her up to service in a world beyond the confines of her small rural Kansas community.

What an important conversation to have with one’s beloved!

I am most grateful to Teresa McNutt Story for generating this thread.