Monday Motivation: 14 Years Of Marriage

What up, everybody? Happy Monday. Luke here. Hope everybody have a great Halloween weekend. It's good to see everybody again. My name is Luke Wentland. I've been at Cadres literally since day one. Live for the place. I struggle with generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and I used alcohol for years to cope with it. But here today, I'm excited to share this. My wife and I today hit our 14 years of marriage. Let me say that again. My wife and I hit our 14 years of marriage. So what's important?

What's important? What's the takeaway that if like someone says like, number one, like how do you get there? What do you need to do? Why do you need to do it? What's the most important things, right? So here we go. Number one, the most important thing is you need to fall in love over and over and over again with your spouse, meaning the way you fell in love with them maybe 15 years ago for me and then 10 years ago and then five years ago and then today, every time, recommitting love in a different way to somebody else is super important, right?

So I just want to say that like finding Finding your love language, like I said, 15 years ago to seven years ago till today is very, very different. just compare it to like your career development. Like are you the same person you are in your career, 10 years ago, as you are today? My gut is probably not, right? And so if you are the same, I mean, you're stagnant and that's not great. But so that's number one. Number 2, human beings evolve. Okay, human beings evolve. You can do one of two things.

You can like be okay with human beings evolving, meaning I am my wife's biggest cheerleader. I'm her rock. I'm her biggest cheerleader. And I want to see her continue to develop and grow and develop and grow and try to find the new things that she's loving or the new friends and just watching and, you know, being being a part of the limb of the tree with her. she's the roots and everything else, but again, just highly encourage you all to really just kind of like cherish and relish in somebody else's development and growth, not get jealous of it, not get scared of it, not get worried of it, not get any of it.

e. me, is the best version of me, and she's the best version of herself, we're going to have a very fulfilled, loving marriage. But it starts with like one of us, right? That one of us has to do it, and the other one's got to join forces and do the exact same thing. Just want to hit all the comments here real quick. Michael says, happy anniversary. Thank you. Triple B, let's go. Rise with Melody, happy anniversary. Thank you. 14 years. It's the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. The hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life is marriage.

That includes starting businesses, going on 100 mile run, doing all the things like being having a really good committed marriage is hard. And it doesn't it doesn't it's not easy. But I'm it's the thing I'm most proud of. It's the thing I'm the absolute most proud of in the world is that, you know, in today's world, You know, the D word, the D word can come up pretty easily, right? And in our world today, you know, 52% of all marriages end in divorce. And, you know, my wife and I agreed that the one thing that's not on the table for us is divorce.

It's not like, right? So like, we can argue, we can have conflict, we can enjoy this, we could do all of it. But that that word's not on the table for us. because we're going to be respectful, we're going to live into our values, we're going to do all the things to one another. So again, just highly encourage you as you're thinking about your marriage and you're continuing to evolve, develop, and grow to say like, you know, what are the things that are most important to us? What are the things we want?

What do I want? Right? And make sure that, you know, your partner knows about that and vice versa. And the last thing I would say is, and I'm very blessed and lucky to be able to say this, my partner lets me dream. My partner lets me be me. My partner lets me be crazy because that's who I am, really. My partner also enjoys all of those things about me. And in where most people might say like, this guy's this or this guy's that, she relishes in it. And she loves this for me. She loves this for me in my life of like, being a risk taker, being an entrepreneur, trying new things.

I mean, mind you, right? So flip the script for her. She's an educator. You know, it's basically 747 to 302, right? You know, a duty day, meaning, you know, it's very succinct, it's organized, it's systematic, it's all the things. And I feel like I bring out the best in her with school, and I think she brings out the best in me with what I'm doing, which is just, again, half the battle in this life. Like, are you making your teammates better? Right? That's just marriage, but just in life. Like, are you making your teammates better?

Are you making the people around you better? Are you making the individuals that you love, care for, and trust better? So 14 years, it's really special. I love my wife more than anything. It's crazy to think like 14 years later and I want to make sure I say this exactly how I want to say it. Falling in love for all the right reasons and falling in love over and over again for the different reasons is what I think makes marriage special. Like I've fallen in love that she's loving to cook and she's trying new recipes on and she's doing these different things in the kitchen.

I love her ability to find new and different ways to make our home look beautiful. I love her love for the classroom. Like I love her love for the classroom. She loves those kids so much. Those 30 kids that she gets year in and year out because I always ask her, I'm like, what's the best part of your job? She goes, I get to fall in love with a group of 30 new kids year over year over year over year. And the obvious ones, like seeing her in motherhood today and watching her be the mom that she is, I mean, can't help but to fall in love over and over again, right?

So think about some of these things that I said and think about this in either A, your relationship, B, your marriage, or C, as you're seeking a marriage or seeking a partner or a teammate in this life, and just try to like remember these and put these in the memory bank of like, what do you really want and why? What do you really want in marriage and why? And you know, it's also one of those things where like when we connect with other people, you know, Emma and I usually always ask like, you know, what makes your marriage special?

You know, what's some of the things that you work through? What are some of the things that you try to see in each other in order to become the best versions of yourself. And it's good questions to ask people. And the answers are always usually unique and different. And I always try to stump them. How have you gotten 36 years in marriage? How have you gotten 22 years in marriage? What does that look like for you? What's been a difficult path? What's been the best path? And it's always great because sometimes You'll see like the answer where it's just in front of their partner and it's kind of like quote unquote token.

And then you'll get the individual who's just going to shoot you straight and it's going to be super vulnerable and share. And I think that's what I think that's what makes it great. So all right. Peace be with everybody this week. It's going to be a banger week. I can tell you that right now. Again, congratulations to my wife and I. for 14 years. And yes, I said that, congratulations to us because it really matters and it's something that we cherish. And so I hope that you all have the best week, do something special, lift somebody up, and you just never know who might need it.

So you all take care. Thanks for joining in today and thanks for celebrating with me, to be frank. This is just a really special day for us and can't wait for Big 15 next year. But as we always say, be where your feet are. So I'm going to cherish today and then I'll wait some 365 days till the next one. So all right, you all take care. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining again. Peace.