I think my 5th grade PE teacher—Coach Smith—gave me that advice. If not her, then someone like her. Standard advice for anyone wanting to know their actual weight without a day of regret on the scale.

I’ve also heard the full spectrum: “Weigh every day to measure change” and “Don’t weigh at all—just go by whether your clothes fit more loosely.”

You can game that last one, though, by not washing your jeans—convincing yourself over the course of a week that you’ve lost 45 pounds.

For most of the past thirteen years, I’ve had more days than not standing on the scale.

You name it, I tried it. Logged my weight daily. Measured weekly. Used apps. Asked Courtney some version of “Am I losing weight?” or “Do I look okay?” on a rotating basis.

She’d reply with either, “You’re crazy and must have body dysmorphia,” or “Yeah, I mean, your love handles are real but I don’t care.”

“Wait—why don’t you care?!?!”

Needless to say, I had (and have) problems.

Bayou Trips to the Doc

I had historically not been a “get your physical” guy. I mean if you’re sick, sure. Go to the doctor. If you’re not sick, who needs a physical? Don’t drink, don’t smoke, sort of move around, eat Chick-fil-A and trust God.

Instead, I’d just write my weight every day (often by tenths of a pound to try and get some extra positive momentum) and make Courtney wonder why she married me.

But then you become middle-aged. You wonder how you’re doing. My Baton Rouge doctor—still a friend—told me he’d still be my doc but I’d have to see him in person once a year. Aside from that I could just text and go, “Hey what’s this thing on my chin?” and he’d answer if he had the confidence to. Other times, like many folks, you just let urgent care be your doc.

During these years (early 2020s to now), I’d drive up around the new year and see some friends, then go get my bloodwork done and drive home.

If you’re wondering why I spent 9-10 hours of driving to spend 28 minutes at the doctor’s office, you’re not alone. It’s about 1800 miles of driving over three years for 70 minutes of being at the doctor.

New Numbers, New Stressors

Then in 2025 they flagged something in my bloodwork. By clinical terms I was pre-diabetic. I guess the one before that is pre-pre-diabetic, AKA normal people.

That bugged me. A lot.

Literally nobody believed me, which had the comfort of absolutely nothing.

I’d share the actual screen grab of the result and it might get met with, “Well, that’s weird.”

And it was weird.

I spent the next five months (yes, five months) chasing some picture of health. I’d tweak diet. I started exercising more. I became highly cognizant of my decisions. I still had Jell-O (blame Courtney, who would essentially tell me I have love handles while handing me Jell-O).

Got my new blood work and the numbers went up.

Now I’m comfortably moving toward “definitely probably diabetic.”

It made no sense.

So I do what any normal human does: I start 16:8 intermittent fasting and check my blood sugar (with finger sticks) roughly 150 times over the next two months.

I drive back across the Mississippi for a mid-year doc visit. I text the doc my PDF of glucose numbers. He laughs at me in his understated doctor friend way.

The result: I’m back to my original panic number from January, moving the needle almost none over the past two months despite significant lifestyle changes and loving yet quiet mockery from my wife (you know, the actual diabetic).

Chasing the Wrong Goal

We’ve all chased numbers to try and close gaps we’re feeling—the scale, barbell, the 401k. Sometimes those numbers are the goal; sometimes they aren’t.

But all my efforts were changing almost nothing (except marital harmony).

It wasn’t until around December of last year that I had finally settled into some changes I felt could stick. I was working through areas of stewardship—a simple framework I’m using—where I had to write a broad statement for what “ideal” was for me in different areas of life.

Introduction to Areas of Stewardship

Under “health and fitness” I wrote this:

I keep an active lifestyle, making wise decisions every day and maintaining a weight that affords me the ability, Lord willing, to enjoy my life into old age.

The statement isn’t supposed to be a SMART goal. It’s an ideal. A picture of what I want. Then I work backwards from there. It re-orients the number as supporting evidence but it isn’t what I chase.

Funny how there was nothing about bloodwork on there.

The scale wasn’t the enemy. Neither was the bloodwork. I just kept asking the numbers to tell me something they were never designed to tell me.

What are you measuring that might be answering a question you’re not actually asking?

Also, if you’d like to hear Courtney and me talk about this incident, managing diabetes, and our failures of not getting continuous glucose monitoring earlier, we' have just the treat for you! Listen below to the extended version of the story.

I have a tendency of reaching over toward Courtney at night and asking, “Are you okay?” She’s a light sleeper and will usually answer me regardless of the hour. If she fails to answer, I know there is a problem. This particular night—in Old City Jerusalem—I reached over. Cold and damp. Not good.

The cause? Low blood sugar. If you’re awake, you catch it.

But Courtney was dead asleep. The sweating made her colder as she slept. She really was crashing—soaked through her clothes and relatively unresponsive.

I entered into a controlled panic.

“Courtney, can you hear me?”

If she could, she was playing coy.

“Courtney, I need you to wake up.”

Light murmurs. Some semblance of consciousness but alarming.

I had no means of helping her. Smart people have glucagon pens for these occasions. We did not. Our hotel didn’t have an elevator to our floor. It’s a small hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem. I had to bolt down a few flights of tile stairs, descending at tight, 90-degree angles.

I arrived in the lobby, a little intense-looking, and started asking people for something to drink. The bartender wasn’t there.

“Hello? I need some help. I need something sweet.”

Another tourist spotted me in the lobby.

“Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”

I knew she was just trying to help, but I also knew for a fact that things would not be okay without intervention.

I procured a beverage of some kind—warm, sweet, chocolaty. I headed back upstairs, assuming we were on the home stretch. I had done this enough to know a little sugar and about 15 minutes work wonders.

The only problem? Courtney is too incapacitated to swallow. What I was trying to get her to drink just fell right out, getting into her hair and onto her pillow. So gross, but we hadn’t gotten anywhere near bringing her sugars to a normal human level.

And there was so. much. shrieking.

During this entire ordeal Courtney wasn’t speaking; she was just shrieking. Loudly. The noise she landed on was one part banshee, one part getting stitches with no anesthetic. I was sitting there, wondering why nobody was waking up to help us out. What kind of team had we traveled with? It wasn’t like the walls were thick. Our door was perpendicular to another, and we did not even get a knock asking, “Is everything okay?” You’re quietly begging that someone can hear this noise, wake up, and lend a hand (doing what? No clue). The other part of you just wants your wife to shut up so that you don’t draw more attention.

Apparently, people did wake up, but they “thought it was a cat” and paid no mind. I’d married a diabetic cat.

To that point, Courtney hadn’t improved any. How do I bring my sweaty, incapacitated wife down several flights of stairs and get her into a taxi so that we can get to whatever hospital we need? What was the Hebrew 9-1-1?

I look for help one more time and someone whom I assume is hotel staff brings me to the kitchen.

I should’ve been laser-focused on Courtney, but the kitchen was hideous. Dishes piled everywhere. These were the dishes that were used for breakfast! I probably could’ve found my plate if I’d looked closely enough. Now I had two problems: (1) my wife was maybe on the brink of catastrophe, and (2) I wasn’t sure I could eat at the hotel anymore. By the end of the trip, I wasn’t eating breakfast anywhere we stayed, but that could also be because I didn’t really want sliced tomatoes for breakfast—or ever.

The procurement of honey packets realigned my priorities.

I got back to Courtney, honey in hand. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started dipping my finger in the honey and rubbing it on the inside of her cheek while she shrieked. Some of it mixed with spit and got in her hair as she lay there. Finger, honey, cheek, shriek, sticky hair. Rinse and repeat.

I learned later that substances like honey can get absorbed into the bloodstream under the tongue. Thus, even though the cheek isn’t the tongue, there was enough honey in her mouth that some got absorbed.

When Courtney recounts all of the chaos, she remembers staring up at a ceiling fan in our room that was spinning. That’s it, just spaced out, confusion, and a ceiling fan. Must be nice to not register all of the chaos and trauma going on. That part is for me, and now for you.

After some time had passed I assessed the situation. Next step? Check her blood sugar. So I found her glucometer, pricked her finger, and squeezed a drop of blood on it. I fully expected to see something in the 20s, which is the “better figure something out or your wife may die” zone.

However, her sugar was comfortably over 100—which is the “live your life and enjoy it” zone. A reading in that range and she should be fully functioning.

Great. Now what?

The shrieking had slowed but Courtney, while conscious, was still not really responsive. I had no bullets left. The script I have is “give her 15 or so grams of carbs and 15 minutes and she’ll get back to normal.” I didn’t have a “and if she doesn’t, then do this” move. In a little over two years of marriage, we had played that game enough times and every single time I had been able to work it out.

Unable to work it out, I began settling into another thought.

During all of the shrieking, the flights of stairs, and the stress, I thought, “I guess this is the rest of my marriage.”

I genuinely believed that something inside Courtney had died (physically, this time, not emotionally) and I needed to settle in for a marriage where the rest of my life would be taking care of my immobile and generally unresponsive wife.

This thought process wasn’t resignation or fear; it was ownership of my new phase of marriage.

But there we were, on the top story of a small hotel in Jerusalem in the middle of the night in the midst of a medical emergency, and I was doing everything I could for her.

When all my interventions proved woefully inadequate, it was there that I thought, “Here we are.”

And it was truly us.

Courtney interrupted my thought process by barely mumbling, “Ccccooolld.”

She’s cold? Well that would make sense. She had sweated through her pajamas. I’d be cold, too, but I’d still be able to move. Her blood sugar had been so low for so long that she was also dealing with hypothermia as her body fought for survival.

I was fresh out of campfires and electric blankets there in Jerusalem, but I did have a bathtub that, by God’s grace, had a detachable shower head. I picked her up and put her in the tub. I’m glad I didn’t need to carry her down three flights of stairs. The fifteen feet from the bed to the bathtub seemed Herculean enough. Shoutout to all the nurses who move people every day.

I began to spray her down with warm water while I left the stopper in the tub to fill it up. This felt like how you would spray a pet, not a wife.

Within moments, she snapped back. Because she was back in the land of the living, she quickly realized her hair was a sticky, gross mess and decided to shower. I went into the room and emotionally surveyed the impact of those last moments. She emerged conscious and clean. Soon after, she shared how much her mouth hurt now. Apparently, she had tried to eat the honey on her cheeks by gnawing on them, causing sore cheeks for the rest of the trip.

All worth it, though. Courtney was back. We were back.

Her pillow was gross.

Other Memoir-realted Posts:

I mainly have stories. That time at Thanksgiving she printed out and recited text messages. That time in high school she made me a cheeseburger after I came home from work. Her laugh had this unforgettable way it ramped up into an unstoppable force of staccatoed glee.

Most of you didn’t know her, so here we are, over 21 years ago:

My mom was great and I have plenty of stories about her. She also drove me crazy in ways that only moms can.

But one thing she was really good at—something Courtney and I still regularly talk about—was being a mom to an adult, married son. The story I remember the most, and retell the most, is how she set her expectations for my marriage.

Mom’s Marriage Comment

I am not a fan of how people talk about marriage sometimes.

“I’m not losing a son/daughter. I’m gaining a daughter/son.”

I don’t think that’s true. Marriage fundamentally changes the way that you relate to your family of origin. You lose your unmarried son and you gain a married son, but in doing that, you also lose a whole lot. Marriage establishes a new, more important, union.

My mom understood this and wanted me to know, very early on, how she was going to operate as Courtney and I began our life together. One day, she pulled me aside and shared with me something that was important for her to share. (This is my paraphrase.)

Hans, you can see your father and me as much as you want, but you never have to see us. You’re always welcome but never expected.

Mom nor Dad ever expected us to be with them for a holiday. They had no traditions that were so important that we had to show up. There was never even a time (that I can recall) where Mom said, “I’d like you to be there,” or, “I haven’t seen you in a while; it might be nice if . . . .” She fully trusted me to be a husband first and then, somewhere down the line, her son. And it was true—she was always glad to see me but she never expected me.

My mom made being her son very easy up until her last day.

Over two decades later, two main thoughts stay loud in my mind.

Embrace the New Stage

Why do I keep going back to that perspective? Why do Courtney and I replay it? Why does Courtney say when friends might be frustrated with their in-laws, “My in-laws have been great”? (I’ll add into this my siblings since the also read this—you’re great, too, Shana and Dale.)

Because Mom and Dad knew how to embrace the new stage they had—as articulated by Mom’s advice/charge/comments/grace.

The pivot from kids in the home to kids out of the home is fierce—we’re not far from that in our own home. The pivot from unmarried kids to married kids hits hard, too. Your child truly and wholly becomes a new unit.

So many of us fight against these relational changes because we are fighting for something that doesn’t exist anymore. We want a time capsule from another era when, really, we need to die to what used to be and embrace what is.

It is one thing to pay lip service to the idea. It is another to live it out. My mom lived it out.

Say It Out Loud

The other aspect of Mom’s advice that was so powerful was that she put herself on record with it. She said it directly to me and couldn’t back away from it.

Her words mattered, and they stuck. I never needed to call her back to those words.

Can you imagine first how freeing it is to hear such a statement? Second, how endearing it made me toward my mom? Would I, with all of that love and trust, want to go, “Thanks, lady, see ya!”

Never.

It is one thing to believe something, and another to articulate it. Something powerful happens when your perspective leaves your mind and heart and actually comes out of your mouth. Now you’re official—now others have heard it. You can’t go backwards. Mom kept herself from going backwards, which allowed us both to go forward.

I miss my mom, but I’m glad for what she taught me. I’m sad for my boys because they’re at the age where they could’ve really cherished her disquieting zaniness and mid-tier opportunities she took to be slightly embarrassing. We can’t drive home from seeing her and laugh together about how goofy or loving she was. They (we) don’t get that, and soon most memories will fade into what we can recall from photographs.

But one thing that the boys will be able to experience, should marriage be in their future, is the same advice: be who you need to be. And I’m always here for you.

Fall of 2020 our boys started a new school. We flipped from public to private school. This was a big deal because I’d been ride or die public school for years.

Schooling choices amongst people in my world are akin to gangs you join. And once you get jumped in, changing allegiance can be tough.

On the one side, you have the homeschoolers. These committed moms and dads use these years of young influence to provide as much hands-on education as they can to their kids. They’re good people, but you can usually pick them out of a crowd. They drive vans or big bus-like vehicles and their kids, while polite, also might be feral because they rarely wear shoes and if you ask them where their parents are, they will probably say “No” and then hit you in the leg and run off. Then they’ll build a campfire for you and cook you dinner after their mom, who was nursing a newborn somewhere, makes them apologize to you not just with words but with actions.

On another side, you have private schoolers. These folks are bougie and spend their well-earned money on providing education for their kids the normies can’t afford. If you tell people your kids are in private school, you’ll get some side-eye and then people will wonder who you murdered to get all of that money to send your kids to school. The private school parents are the most likely to be helicopter parents with strong entitlement vibes because they’re paying customers. They don’t want the school to just educate their kids but also provide their social calendar. If their kids misbehave, it must be the school’s fault.

Then you have the public schoolers. This is the traditional route. Mom and dad might both be working but they’re committed to their neighborhood and their kids’ education. They have a firm conviction that public education is the right way to appropriately train their kids for how to engage with different worldviews. They send their little missionary kids to school every day to make a positive impact. Their kids are probably cussing under their breath a little, too.

Side note: Whatever path you choose brings with it blessings and curses. There’s no perfect model and you’ll always be dealing with (and compensating for) your schooling decisions.

When Expectations Don’t Match Reality

Making the switch for us took some time, some prayer, some processing, some support, and a longer-than-expected interview process. At least it was during COVID so numerous aspects of the application process were cut short.

Driving up, the campus looked nice—small cottages with play areas for each age group (the equivalent of elementary, middle, and high school, though you can’t use those words in classical education). We walk in and are greeted by two members of the admissions team and then ushered into a small library.

There, sitting at the table, the litany of questions begins. I don’t remember all of the questions. I just remember the feeling.

Anger. Embarrassment. Confusion as to whose kids these were.

The admissions interviewers for the meeting didn’t seem to be bothered.

I was bothered.

The story behind the story:

With every one-word or half-answer or “I don’t know,” I found myself wanting to snap. Come on, boys, this isn’t hard. Just do what you’re supposed to do. Be kind; don’t be a jerk. And, for goodness’ sake, stop crying about uniforms and homework.

Forty-five excruciating minutes later, the meeting was over. I want to yell at my kids, but my commitment to conflict resolution means I can’t let the school see me yell at them. I have to wait until we get in the car and yell at them like a normal dad.

Then it starts. My words might be off here, but my feelings are not.

“Boys, you were very rude in that meeting.”

“What?!?”

“You were rude. You were disrespectful. Why couldn’t you answer the questions? That was unacceptable.”

The tears begin to flow. I don’t care. I just keep driving.

“That is not the way you talk to adults; that’s not the way you interview.”

Tears continue. I wonder if they will actually accept us. “Pastor’s family denied admission to local Christian school.”

Just Tell Us!

The drive home has one light that always takes a little longer because traffic backs up. My oldest, ever the honest one, through tears, says, “You just needed to tell us!”

That one cut deep.

In what world should a dad assume his kids magically know how to handle situations they’ve never been in? That’s apparently what citizens do in the world I’ve created in my mind.

Welcome to Hans’ head. Population: zero, because nobody can survive.

My pride wants me to double down. “Kids should know better,” I’d like to think. But why should they know better? That’s why they have parents. I’m their dad.

The perception of a ten-year-old to give such a tearful rebuke still sits with me. I’m at a light about to turn and I realize just how askew my own heart is. School acceptance or not, I can’t be this kind of person.

We get home and I process the words. I know that simple things like helping my young kids understand expectations goes far better for them. I know they need my encouragement more than my evisceration about not measuring up. I’m their guide in this world, not their drill sergeant.

They need their dad.

Speaking of, here’s a great song about dads being dads.

Don’t Assume, Friends

Too many of us expect people to simply know how to act in any situation. That was my problem—my failure. At times, it still is.

But that’s isn’t how it works, is it?

Parents, in particular, are gentle guides to help their kids navigate what is ever a circuitous road. They don’t need your anger; they need you.

Where do you need to set someone up for success rather than tell them where they didn’t measure up?

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Related Posts

And me? I stepped into the world of coaching recreational youth baseball.

I had never played baseball. I sat down with friends to learn how to run a practice.

“Do you know what a double cut is?”

“A double what?”

“Double cut.”

“No. Sounds important. How do I teach this to eight- and nine-year-olds?”

(Note: was not important nor could they do it.)

I pieced together lineups, practice plans, and game plans. I bought books on coaching and more than one gimmick. In future years, I made a document (complete with GIFs) on batting stance, launch position, coiling, and throwing mechanics.

I rotated pitchers. I had kids play positions of which they had no knowledge. I got mad at parents and they got mad at me. I lost sleep wondering what I did wrong when we lost a game. I made great friends.

In sum: I loved it.

The Youth Sports Death Grip

Recreational ball is my speed. The competition? Pretty bad. The fun? High. I miss the ballparks. I miss coaching with my friends—Matt, Lupe, Adam, Dave, Bret, and Scott, to name a few. Good men, good leaders, and engaged parents. There are worse things to be.

But I also got caught up in the never-ending cycle of “more” that goes along with many youth sports. Baseball got way too much of my attention. After a year or two of rec ball, you gotta make a change. If you want your son to have a chance to be the starting shortstop for the Astros, you have to play on one of the ten billion select teams around led by someone who might’ve played low-A ball.

So you do. You buy a new bat every year. You steal from college savings to pay the insane gate fees. You mortgage away half of your weekends to sit at ballfields while your youngest son beats his head against the bleachers out of boredom. You do it for your kid—he's your retirement.

You also do it for the relationships you’ve formed and the people you’ve gotten to know over years.

You also sort of do it for yourself—well, I did.

And we were pretty tame with it. Baseball was mildly disruptive to our larger commitments. We’d leave practice early to head to student ministry events. We only played locally. Never did one of the 700 world series events you could do. If a game was on a Sunday, we’d head out early, probably lose the 8am game, and then drive to church. If we won the game, we’d still go to church, then head back out afterward and go lose that game.

But it was a lot. Anyone in competitive anything will tell you it’s a lot. They just get mad when you say that maybe it’s too much. I’d get mad at you, too.

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Teenage Wisdom

Thus, the prayers for our family started early. While we loved it—while I loved it—I can’t always promise I loved it for the right reasons. So I’d pray that we wouldn’t make an idol out of baseball. I’d pray for wisdom. I’d talk to friends. I coached in some iteration four seasons. We tried to make it a family affair.

One of our boys played an additional three seasons with different groupings of friends from those rec days.

Then, it ended.

I committed, as much as possible, to be the baseball dad. It was a part of how I bonded. One week, Courtney texted that our son might want to be done playing.

This news came as a surprise to me.

However, on a drive home from practice one night, I heard it from him.

“Mom says you want to be done.”

“Yeah. I don’t like that baseball takes so much time away from the family. From important stuff. I don’t want to spend all my time there.”

“Yeah but are you sure? Maybe you should talk to people who know this world more. Talk to Andrew [student minister]. Talk to Nolan [great guy at our church who played college baseball].”

What am I doing? On one hand I’m enormously proud of him and want him to process with other people who love him. On the other hand I’m sort of hoping he backs out or can be convinced otherwise because wHaT aBoUt Me?!?

“I mean. Have you prayed about this?”

“Yes. One of the reasons I think this is the right thing to do is because it wasn’t on my mind at all when the season started.”

“Then let’s enjoy the rest of the season and ride off into the sunset.”

I’m grateful for the men who invested in our family through baseball. I still keep up with many of them. Last week I grabbed coffee with one to talk life, parenting, and faith. I work with another one now—he helped hire me here in Texas. I swap family pics and videos with a third. And I still text a friend and dad who was one of our son’s biggest fans—the one who helped us make sure he got to all those games.

It was sad to untether that.

I had to grieve (and realize how quietly fanatic I had become).

The Best Decision is the One I Didn’t Make

Honestly, our boy’s better wisdom to take a big step and quit baseball was one of the best decisions our family has ever made. And I didn’t even make it.

I credit him, a thirteen-year-old at the time, with changing the trajectory of our family for the better.

I tell him regularly, “You quitting baseball was one of the best things that happened to us.”

“Really? Cool.”

Courtney and I want to teach our kids to pray, use wisdom, and trust God to give them direction. But we didn’t really think it would work. You need to be at least voting age before you make those decisions, right?

However, I can say without a doubt that our family is in a much healthier spot because our son made a decision I wasn’t ready to make.

Thanks, son.

What does he do with his free time? Well, some of it includes making content for a YouTube channel he has with his friends.

This is better, right? Please tell me this is better. At least we’re still using the bats.

Most of those steps were alone with my own thoughts and prayers. I have found that the more output I have in life, the more time I need to process. On times I’m not alone with my gait, it’s because Courtney has joined me. We also took several walks with friends from church. Over the break I walked with two of our boys for a quick getaway from a family party.

During a walk after Christmas, and right after Courtney and the boys traveled to Louisiana for about ten days, I finished up a podcast I listen to semi-regularly. On it, the contributors were asked what their favorite piece of journalism was outside of their own platform.

One contributor went back to an article from the beginning of 2025, “The Anti-Social Century” by Derek Thompson of The Atlantic (paywalled, but can be found on Apple News if you have it).

This article doesn’t rant about loneliness—in fact, Thompson highlights the difference between loneliness (which many people do not feel) and solitude (which is used in the article as being “the only person in the room” even if on a device engaging with others). I started this article from a coffee shop by myself; I’m in solitude for all intents and purposes.

(The irony isn’t lost on me that I listened to this article while walking by myself.)

Thompson’s thesis:

The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching—for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.

I found much in the article to be true. Yet there was this unspoken part of me as I considered the people I’ve engaged with over years—men, in particular—who struggle to connect with peers. I think about that long-tenured meme (though the number can be debated, thanks to Judas):

This article reminded me of something I wrote about years ago and say to anyone who will listen: if you want friends, you have to be a friend.

Easier said than done. In fact, we often view our relationships—even our closest ones—as transactional. I’ve done it, too.

However, realizing just how much solitude impacts our culture, I thought more about how this impacts us when it comes to our friendships—men, in particular.

Friendship: A Lost Art, Especially for Men

I come across people who suffer from relational isolation. They so badly want friends but they can’t seem to cross the divide. This feeling can result from one’s crushing insecurity, self-imposed “my spouse is my best friend” jargon,1 the simple fact that some of us are quite difficult to befriend, or something that falls in between.

One aspect I find, at least anecdotally, is this: we want something from people we often have not first been willing to give.

Our cultural phrases teach us that we should know better.

• You get out what you put in.

• No pain, no gain.

• Be the change you want to see.

Whatever your phrase, I’ll say this: friendship is hard. To be a friend takes a significant amount of work.

Men, we cannot meaningfully connect to others as genuine friends without significant sacrifices. In other words, it’ll cost you.

• Time: Friendships aren’t built in solitude and don’t get cooked in a microwave. You have to invest substantial time with people—very often without much in return. Not only that—and they don’t teach you this in school—but you might have to put in significant time with people before you find one you might have a strong connection with. And the place you might have to give up time in order to be with others? Your “me” time.

• Money: I’m not talking about buying friends, which would be a Michael Scott strategy. I’m talking about being generous. Be the one who buys lunch with no paybacks. Even if you have people over, you’re providing them something from your fridge or pantry. It’s always money well-spent but it needs to be a part of how you think nonetheless. Our general rule as a family with our boys’ friends: If they’re with us, they don’t pay, because they’re part of the family at that moment.

• Pain: To let someone get close enough to hurt you is a vulnerable thing, but it comes with the territory. In fact, the ones you let get the closest to you are the ones who will hurt you the most. When you’re face to face with someone who has hurt you (or you’ve hurt), you can’t walk away from your device. You’re stuck there, and you have to deal with it.

For some, these costs are a no-brainer. For others, they’re a bridge too far. However, if you want the benefits of deep friendships, you have to pony up.

Sow Seeds of Friendship Wide

I don’t plan to stop walking anytime soon. It’s where I process, pray, and consider those people in my life who are dear to me. The solitude helps prepare me for the face time with others. But I don’t live for the solitude.

We keep our Christmas cards up the entire next year. This display is largely due to our own lack of desire to take them down. People come over and are surprised by the number. I’d say we got roughly 90 in 2025 (which isn’t that many). Still, we’ve been at it a long time, so you get a card from someone and you go, “Shoot, I guess we need to send them one, too.” There’s some formality to it I laugh over.

But how many did we send? Over 400. People don’t see that part.

Doing the math, that means for about every four cards we send, we get one back.

But the math is irrelevant because we don’t send out cards to get cards. We send out cards to make one more connection with people in our lives. Some we know well, others not as well, but each family matters.

Those 90 will be staring at us throughout much of 2026 and give me a reminder. At times, we take a card down and tell the kids a story about the family and something we appreciate about them. We might pray for them, too.

All that to say: sow seeds of friendship wide and see what harvest may come.

What do I mean? Invest broadly in people who cross your path. Take them to coffee. Invite them over. Ask them questions about where they came from and what they’re passionate about. Shoot, go a little over budget to feed them. Let yourself be interrupted by them.

Then, do it again. This time with someone else.

You may not realize how many new relationships begin to form.

Today’s post highlights an aspect of marriage we all deal with: boundaries. I’ve adapted here to make a post. Hope you enjoy!

The Story: Falling Out of Bed

During our early marriage, we lived in a two-story rental we ended up buying from Courtney’s parents shortly into our time in Baton Rouge. Our bedroom sat on the first floor and above our bedroom was the boys’ room, with two additional bedrooms down the hall. Anyone who has lived in an apartment can tell you that the sound of feet, or balls bouncing, or children falling on the floor upstairs translates downstairs like someone tried to use another human as an axe to chop through the floor. However, such noises rarely have such a source.

One night, with Courtney’s mom in a guest room down the hall from the boys upstairs, I awake to the sound of a child being thrown through the floor. Doubting that was the case, I wanted to see what all the noise was about. I bound up the stairs to see what was the matter.

“I hope that didn’t wake anyone” is on repeat in my head. Probably eight seconds pass between noise, me waking up, sprinting up the stairs like a ninja, and entering the first door on the right.

All the children are still asleep. One on the floor who never woke up as he rolled out of the bed. I pick up the befallen son, place him back in his bed, and leave the room.

“Everything okay?”

“Shoot!” is what goes on in my head but I say, “Yeah, he fell out of bed but it’s fine,” as I see Court’s mom silhouetted in the dark hallway. I head down the stairs, not quite as quickly, and go back to bed.

The next morning begins and I head to the office and settle in for an important day of doing God’s work—emails, reading, talking to people.

While at the office, a classic mother and daughter conversation ensues of which I was unaware. The conversation didn’t take long to find me, though.

“Courtney, would it be okay if I bought a bedrail for you guys so that the boys don’t fall out of their beds?”

I get it. It feels innocuous. Shoot, it is innocuous. But Courtney and I are trying to become “Team Googer” over here. We haven’t done the best job operating like a unit, so we are going to give it a shot.

Courtney says, “Hold on, let me call Hans.”

My phone rings. This is the moment when I’m brought into the conversation.

You should know that of all things in the world I hate, phone calls exist squarely in my top five. My closest friends know if they must talk to me, they call me, but it’d better be an emergency. Otherwise, text. I’m available about 18 hours a day, but not by phone call. If someone sees my number on their screen, they answer because it is likely that I was murdered and someone found my phone, unlocked it with my dead face, and called one of my favorites to say, “There’s a dead guy here. He might know you. His last phone call was three weeks ago.” So when I see Courtney’s name, I know we have to talk.

“Is everything okay?”

“Hey, my mom wanted to buy a bedrail for the boys. Is that all right?”

“No, we don’t need a bedrail. Kids fall out of beds. It is fine. Not a concern of mine.”

“Okay.”

In my head, that’s that. But if you know South Louisiana moms, daughters, and families, that’s rarely that. We didn’t have bunk beds or anything, just normal twin beds and a floor full of carpet. All drop tests would approve small children rolling out of that bed and falling 18 to 24 inches onto the floor. We’re fine. Case closed.

Well, the case wasn’t closed. Through some word-salad of a response to her mom, Courtney ended with, “Just do what you want.”

We had come to believe that the old patterns got left in Dallas—where our marriage started out. But our time in Baton Rouge proved that old patterns don’t die; they just find new soil. Courtney’s habit of pleasing others meant she was faced with a choice: who do I let down?

For Courtney, letting the spouse down proves much easier than the mother.

After it all, I get a text. At least it is in a format I appreciate.

“Hey, I went ahead and told my mom it was fine to get them.”

“YOU PICKED THE WRONG SIDE!!!”

I 100 percent all-capsed her. That text set off ten of the most memorable minutes of our marriage. A comedy of errors.

Courtney did end up reneging on the “do what you want,” but it wasn’t without a cost.

Curious to listen to how Courtney and I processed this? Rather than our normal “Author’s Commentary” you can hear us talk through the post below:

The Lesson: You’re a Unit Even When You Forget

Have you ever “won” an argument but the final outcome was so convoluted that you aren’t sure if you actually won? This is our bedrail debacle.

No bedrail: Check. Hans wins.

Stress your relationship with your mom: Check. Courtney loses.

Stress your relationship with your mother-in-law: Check. Hans loses.

Stress the relationship with your spouse: Check. Hans and Courtney lose.

Stress fracture your son’s arm: To be determined. (We still haven’t purchased a bedrail, but some of our children often sleep on the floor like cave trolls.)

I do not expect husbands and wives to always agree but to be on the same team. Courtney does, too. You probably do, as well. It’s the “leave and cleave” part of marriage. We are a unit. When the unit decides, the decision is done. It’s the constant push and pull of marriage—and while we get better, we never conquer it.

The Epilogue: Over Ten Years Later

We recently took a couple of the boys to dinner and told them this story—which they had never heard. We won’t tell you who said what, but these were the phrases that were shared at dinner:

“If you guys had gotten a bedrail, I would’ve been so mad.”

“Really? I doubt you would’ve been mad or even remembered,” we told him.

“When I was little I remember going to sleep in my bed and waking up on the floor a lot.” (Okay, maybe it happened more than once. Mom and Dad remember once.)

“One time, when we were older and had bunk beds, Mimi [her grandmother name] always told us to be careful and not fall off the bed when we were playing. We were never going to fall off the bed. Then one time, he fell off the bed and hit his face on it and I thought, ‘Well, I guess we might fall off the bed.’”

Trying to be a good and instructive parent, Courtney asked, “Boys, what is a better way we could’ve handled that situation about the bed rail?”

“Let her buy it and then never use it,” said one son.

“Incorrect. That’s passive aggressive and it won’t work,” said Dad.

“Oh, okay.”

“I know. How about just say ‘No’ and then just still say, ‘No’ and not change your mind?” said another son. He didn’t say it matter-of-factily, but with a lot of “I definitely know a better way” vibes that I appreciated.

“Ding ding ding.”

I added, “Also, you could’ve just said ‘No’ and never called me, but Mom sometimes wants a little bit of help and we need to give it because that’s what families do and Mom is the best person in the whole wide world.”

(I added some lines in that to make myself sound better.)

Where are your biggest boundary moments? Also, am I the only one that’s crazy? Our marriage is normal, right? Reply below.

Often, this freedom gave me opportunities to grow. Sometimes, this freedom could be manipulated. Other times, a little more restriction or guidance would have been helpful.

However, one specific Christmas, their long leash was long enough to let me get tangled within it. That lesson, which was never spoken, only experienced, changed my own parenting and gave me a respect for my parents that continues to this day. (Can you still respect you mom after she’s passed away? I think so.)

Middle school into high school was an interesting transition for our family. Allow me to set the table while we get to that specific Christmas. You need to know my parents and their vibes.

For one, sometime in eighth grade we illegally went to school. That is, we moved about 45 minutes away from my school district but didn’t change our address. Every morning, dad drove east to his job and mom drove my brother and me west to our illegal school. My sister, who was finishing high school, was living with friends so she could finish without moving.

Well, we finally got caught. An administrator approached mom at her work and she immediately had to get us from school. Kicked out. Gone. No more education. My brother and I were left without a school.

Mom, ever the planner, found an apartment back in our school district, rented it, and we were there within a day or two. I remember when an administrator called me into the office at that same school and handed me a “return to sender” envelope with our illegal address on it.

“Can you explain this?”

“Yep. That was our address but we don’t live there anymore. We just moved into an apartment a couple miles away.”

“Umm. Ok.”

Then I went back to class. Case closed.

Over the next year or two we built a house closer to the school and moved in there. The Christmas tree sat in a dining room at the bottom of a nice, curved staircase. You could always see the tree as you descended the stairs.

A Necklace and Cologne

This Christmas, in particular, I was probably a sophomore or junior—gosh, I hope I wasn’t a senior. I wanted a cross necklace and some cologne. Why? High school in the late 90s.

However, I didn’t want just any cross necklace or cologne. I wanted the cross necklace that was made from two nails that the Christian dudes wore. Those who know, know. Coolness was that necklace.

For the cologne, I don’t know what I wanted but it had to be something trendy. Not the Calvin Klein unisex ones (CK One, CK Be) because I’d hate my life half-smelling like a girl. Cool Water was one I’d gotten before, maybe that. Joop would be okay. Tommy Hilfiger would be the coolest. A few years prior I got the quarter-ounce Tommy cologne and felt like a boss. (Apparently, someone sells this “vintage” cologne for a buck per hundredth of an ounce.)

I was ready to be amazed and then amaze.

“Can I Have It?”

The only problem? The cross necklace I got was more of a larger pewter cross on a beaded ball chain. It would’ve hung down to my solar plexus. The cologne was Drakkar Noir. You can buy that cologne at Walmart. I didn’t want Walmart cologne!

(Please know that even as I type these words, I still feel the embarrassment and shame of my childish, ungrateful, highly selfish behavior. )

I let my parents know I wanted nothing to do with those gifts. I probably even said, “I don’t want them.” My parents were well within their rights to murder me, banish me, or shame me in front of the family. I deserved it.

Instead, they did something worse. They did not correct me; they just took the gifts themselves.

My mom looked at that necklace and said, “Well would it be okay if I wore it?”

“Sure.”

My dad, seeing my dislike for Walmart cologne asked, “Can I use it?”

“Of course.”

In half a second they did something far worse than confront me; they let my childish behavior simply exist. They didn’t correct it. They didn’t need to. They knew I was being a fool and there was no reason to force me to have to defend it; it was already indefensible.

Christmas went on without any issues. I was not in the dog house. I was not grounded. We continued to see family, have fun, and move forward.

Sometimes Silence Teaches Better Lessons

My parents’ longer leash meant that, at times, I received the freedom to roam around in my childish emotions. Correction, while important, isn’t always needed—especially as you age.

I am often quick with my own children to try and tell them what they did wrong and what the better behavior would look like. You know what? They don’t always need that. We have two high schoolers and one fast approaching it. Now is the time to roam.

My parents taught me that sometimes silence teaches better lessons.

I hate that lesson because of how true it is.

For years upon years my mom wore that necklace. I’d see it when she got home from work, I saw it when she dressed up for Christmas, I’d see it when she dressed casually after a long day. There it was: a constant reminder that ingratitude has long-lasting repercussions. And, as odd as it feels, grace existed for me in my parents’ kindness simply to take the gifts themselves and let me watch Christmas unfold.

Sometimes we’d all be better saying less.

As always, I’d love to hear how these posts connect with you. Where have you stepped in too quickly? Where have you been given enough freedom to fail in big ways? Reply to let me know.

Author’s Commentary: If you’d like to hear the story behind the story, see below.

Most mornings, Courtney prepares these two items for me. My doctor said I needed to be more aware of my glucose control so I changed my diet this year. Low-fat Greek yogurt with chia seeds and fruit are on the agenda almost every day. I hate chopped veggies but if they are prepared for me, I’ll eat them.

However, these containers have a story to tell about marriage, and it begins with a lunch request.

What’s for Lunch?

I don’t know what your family dynamics look like, but I do NOT enjoy picking what food I’ll eat. In fact, choosing restaurants or meals to be cooked orbits right around getting root canals for me. Having gotten two root canals in my life, I can testify that they are actually much easier (and less painful) than having to pick a restaurant.

Point me in a direction, and I’ll go, but food choices are at the bottom of my list of choices I want to make or feel as if I need to make.

One particular morning, after Courtney had made chicken the night before, she asked me if I wanted her to pack up the chicken for me to have for lunch. Cooking the chicken fills the house with the smell of air fryer-vented spices for about 12 hours.

“Do you want the chicken tomorrow?”

“No. Smells.”

Did I mention I don’t like heating up food, either?

“Do you want a turkey sandwich? It’s been a long time, though; you probably don’t want that.”

I have to say, Courtney isn’t usually providing lunch options for me so these requests are new. I don’t know why she’s trying to send me with yogurt, veggies, AND lunch.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Why are you so rude? Just say ‘No, thanks.’”

“Why is this a thing?” I don’t want to eat those and I don’t want to pick.

The One-Mile Fight

Then we go on a walk. For the next mile, which is about 17 minutes for our pace, we are arguing.

“Why are you so rude about the food? You don’t need to be.”

“I’m sorry about that, but I hate picking things. You know this.”

“I’m just OFFERING. What’s wrong with that?”

“I hate picking. There are one billion other things I could be doing aside from picking meals.”

“Just tell me ‘Thanks but I’m good’ and move on.”

“I will almost always say, ‘No’ if I’m asked if I want something.”

Then we have to be quiet because the couple we walk by might hear us. The husband looks like the Red Baron.

We recycle this conversation for the entire mile. Back and forth. It was ridiculous.

What, you don’t do this? Aren’t most marital fights about dumb things that become huge?

Let’s Not Make it Moral

I had a coach work with me one time and he developed a simple way of dealing with conflict.

• Turn up the heat: When you turn up the heat, you make the situation harder to tolerate by drawing more attention to it. (“Hey, why do you always do that thing I hate so much?”)

• Turn down the heat: When you turn down the heat, you make the behavior easier to tolerate and not draw attention to it. (Maybe you even say nothing when someone does that thing you hate.)

I work on this with CEOs and friends, staff members and spouses, and I’ll ask, “What does this situation need? More intensity or less?” The answer can be surprising. I’ve turned up the heat in certain situations, but I’ve also turned it down.

For this fight? I figured turning it down was the right choice. I mean, this is the mother of my children and the one I have get to sleep beside.

“Hey, can we stop assuming that either person’s desires are superior? You like to provide food; I don’t like to pick food. We’ll always fight over this. I’ll eat whatever you prepare. And if you don’t prepare anything, that’s fine, too.”

“Sounds good.”

Not Everything Needs to Be Personal

So many times the one-mile fight isn’t about the topic at hand but the million other grievances we haven’t addressed.

But here’s a simple question for us today:

Not every issue is an opportunity to change the other person. Nor is it an opportunity to bring up 20 other grievances. In all of your relationships you have to handle yours and everyone else’s preferences. Turn down the heat and make a simple change.

This afternoon I opened up the fridge at the office, knowing Courtney had been here. As I looked in, I saw three items: (1) a bag of sliced carrots, (2) a container of hummus, and (3) a serving of yogurt with chia seeds and fruit. All sitting on the top shelf.

I didn’t ask for them; she didn’t say she’d make them. We didn’t walk a mile and fight over whether or not I wanted them (and had she asked me if I wanted them, I would’ve said, “No.”) But lunch was served.

And now those same containers sit beside me, empty, as I write this.

Where in your life do you need to turn down or turn up the heat? I’d love to hear it. Post below or reply back and let me know.

AUTHOR’S COMMENTARY: Don’t forget the behind-the-scenes of the post with the author’s commentary.

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Years back, I’d bring the boys outside to watch me. A family member of Courtney’s had a list of competencies he wanted to teach his son before he left the house. “Change the oil” was on it. Mentally, I stole that note. My kids don’t know how to change oil, but they did see me do it a time or two.

But more than those oil changes, they will much more likely remember the time I lied.

The thing I loathe most about oil changes is disposing of the used oil.

Stupid, I know, but that last task is the worst task.

In our shed right now sits a 16-month-old Tupperware container of used oil. I changed the oil in a generator a friend lent us after a hurricane and we were a week or so without power. Every time I mow, I open up that shed and think, “Yep.”

Back when I was an oil change aficionado, I had to drive it about two miles to an AutoZone to dispose of the oil. They had these big metal containers for oil recycling and if you walked in with old oil, they’d just point you to the back. It felt a little dangerous to be heading into the back of the store where they kept the stock, but they let you in.

“Yep”

One time, I was changing the oil shortly after I had some power steering work done. Why does this matter? The reservoir of power steering fluid was just a tad overfilled. Knowing me, I probably grabbed one of the kids’ medicine syringes (the kind you get with the pink stuff when your kid has an earache) and siphoned off just enough to get the level normal.

Where do I put that little bit of power steering fluid? With the motor oil, of course.

I drive my two miles, get my big saucer of used oil out of the back of the car, and bring it toward the back.

“Hey, I can recycle a little oil here, right?”

“Yes, sir. It’s just oil, right?”

“Yep.”

No pause. No hesitation. Maybe a millisecond of, “Well, that’s not true.” Then, dump the oil and move on.

All the way home, I knew what I had done.

Confessing the Lightweight Lie

I get it. “Not a big deal, it’s all part of stuff that is under the hood of a car.” A quick Google search might tell you that it is fine and these two fluids can be mixed.
”You’re being dumb.”

I, like you, make micro-justifications for many actions. What happened in that moment? I assumed what the right decision was, I assumed the employee wouldn’t care one way or another (I mean, it’s AutoZone), I assumed it wasn’t a big deal, and I acted on what I defined as correct.

The main character in all of those assumptions: yours truly.

I knew I needed to do something, but what? I can’t separate out all of the oil. I can’t fix it. Am I gonna go drink it all up? Go start my own oil-recycling business? Wear a sandwich board that said, “I lied about used motor oil. Don’t be like me”?

I needed to confess it, as weird as it felt.

You ever get convicted and know you need to say something, but the embarrassment of saying anything almost outweighs the confession? Neither have I.

Still, gotta say something. Two places to go:

First, to my family.

“Courtney, boys, I did something dumb.”

“Okay. You’re right. Why’d you do that?”

“Didn’t want to have to deal with oil in the house. Assumed the guy wouldn’t care. Didn’t think it was worth bringing up.”

Now I gotta go fix it.

Then, to AutoZone guy.

“Welcome to AutoZone.”

“Hey, cool, yeah, I was just here. I told you that what I brought in was just motor oil but it wasn’t. It included a little bit of power steering fluid and I dumped it in there.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I know, not much you can do about it now and not sure what I can do. But I needed to let you know.”

“It probably isn’t a big deal.”

“I know, but still. Thanks.”

Then I drove home—this time, with a lighter heart.

Make it Right in Whatever Ways You Can

Honestly, I get that this story seems ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I’m a grown man who knows better who is raising his family to do better.

But isn’t it common, and easy, to create those small, seemingly justifiable, vampire dishonesties?

Most of us aren’t heavyweight liars; we’re lightweight liars.

Heavyweight liars know they’re being dishonest and so does everyone else. Lightweight liars commit minor infractions that impact almost nobody.

Smaller consequences, fewer participants aware of the infraction, much more soul-sucking.

When you commit a lightweight lie, I’d say this: own it quickly, apologize wherever you must, and do whatever you can to make it right.

You’ll feel stupid, likely embarrassed, and better.

And your children might learn something, too. If not, they’ll at least have something to mock you about later.

Happy to have you along for another “Real Life” post. The whole premise of this Substack is that Real Life and Real Leadership play off of each other—even when we don’t want them to. Articles come on Mondays, alternating each section.

Reply back and let me know what is working and what you’d like to hear.

We have never experienced the knock-down-drag-out depression of the incapacitating variety. The kind we’ve endured is just enough to let you know it’s still around—sort of like that nagging cough. You’re never fully incapacitated; you’re just unable to function like you’d prefer. Instead, when you do things like teach (which Courtney spent two years early in marriage “doing”), you just get up right before you have to go to work, cry a lot, and try to sleep under your desk during your conference period.

I have likened Courtney’s high-functioning depression to walking a slow pace on a treadmill that has its incline set on a seven out of ten. You can do the work set before you and get through the day—you may not even realize the incline—but you always end a little more tired and sore in places you were not expecting. “Why am I so tired?!”

I wish I were kidding that 15 years of marriage passed before we had words for what she experienced. We aren’t doctor-averse or counselor-averse or anything of the sort (we’ve gone to numerous of both); we just erroneously assumed that 98% of the issue she experienced was circumstantial.

While circumstances played a role, they weren’t everything.

You’re Still Not Okay

By about the Fall of 2020, we had tweaked every dial we knew of in order to move the needle to whatever “better” was for her (and, thus, for us).

• Time: Courtney got a job in 2019 at the boys’ school by our house. This time it was 20 hours a week and only administrative work, but it was miserable. She would end her days at home crying; I would feel bad and ask her how come she couldn’t snap out of it. COVID hit and she at least didn’t have to go to the office, but that didn’t stop her from feeling miserable. God provided an opportunity for the boys to change their schooling situation and for Courtney to get out of that job. She now had more time, which we knew she needed.

• Exercise: With an hour of that time, we went to the gym together each morning. This was a trip. Courtney and I rarely go to the gym together. She hates gyms and is very bad at following trainer instructions. I get embarrassed and act like she’s the person I picked up on the way to class because I felt bad for her. We joined a class-based strength training gym together—but often on opposite sides of the room. Still, the routine became an early morning wake-up: get the family out of the door (tired), drop them off at school together, and stop off at the gym on the way home. We’d do a one-hour class and laugh our way through it as Courtney tried to figure out the mechanics of a dead lift.

• Counseling: You know something is awry when you start paying strangers to help you. Those evening calls with someone whose name we can’t remember rarely seemed to produce some type of enduring fruit. We have spent plenty on counseling over the years—every place we’ve lived, Courtney has had one and sometimes we have gone together. Still, no “aha” unlocked. Courtney would also have calls with Bettejean. If you don’t know her, I’m sorry. She’s a wonderful woman who has known her for probably close to 30 years. Firm and gracious, Bettejean would try and help Courtney walk more joyfully. We love her.

• Faith and Service: Courtney continued to invest her life in others. She’d meet with people to talk about life, engage Scripture, and pray for them. She loved being a library volunteer at the school and to read to the kids. She was glad to bake a batch of cookies for any occasion. She showed up, week after week, to hear my meager sermons and be near her church family.

All the dials moved into every position and it still seemed like nothing worked.

As if a new dawning altogether hit us, I looked at Courtney one day and said,

“You’re still not okay.”

“I know.”

That was a watershed moment for us. We were never concerned about putting on a performance—we aren’t good performers. Our marriage is not something we think others should aspire to (it is often the opposite). We simply came to the end of ourselves and didn’t know what was next.

We added another dial to the dashboard: meds.

I know that many people are medication-averse, and I can understand that. In the realm of mental health, I never tell someone what they must do. All I can say is that small dose dropped the treadmill incline from a seven to about a three or four. When you live your life on a seven, a 50% drop in incline feels like you were given a whole new capacity. You can do anything.

And, man, did Courtney adjust.

New energy, new engagement, more cookies, more talking, more time with friends, more everything.

And I found myself bugged.

“You’re Sick, Too”

Why would I be bugged by Courtney’s new capacity to talk, feel, cook, and engage with her friends? “Sounds like an answer to prayer" is what any marriage counselor we have invested money in would tell us.

Simple. Her improving health required me to change, too, and I like living my life. Her health required me to consider my own.

We don’t think about all of the ways we have learned to accommodate, or even take advantage of, other people’s issues. When Courtney’s depressed, her default mode is “whatever you need.”

I need to stay out late for work? Sure thing. I want to stay home this weekend and not visit anyone? No problem. “Hey, can you handle that stuff with the kids so I don’t have to?” Sure. If I don’t want to talk about something, we don’t talk about it.

All of a sudden, Courtney started telling me what she wanted. She told me how she wanted to spend time, where she wanted to go with the kids, what she thought was important. I’d be on my computer doing the Lord’s work and she’d want to tell me a story about a co-worker.

“Umm. Excuse me? You can’t spend 15 years letting me do what I want and then, all of a sudden, flip on and start making me adjust while I’m on my computer.”

Of course she could, and of course she should.

I had discussed these marriage issues with many. One of my favorite comments came from my uncle, who has smiling eyes and a handlebar mustache. Having lived his life in and around people with addictions, he knows just how unhealthy everyone becomes. Telling him some story (be it about depression, or diabetes, or anything else), he looked at me with his smiling eyes and said, “Yep, Hans. You’re sick, too.”

He was right. Courtney and I were one, and it was naive to presume her issues wouldn’t impact me and how we operated together. I can’t fix her issues, and she can’t fix mine, but they are still our issues.

Health Forces Health

I bet everyone reading this exists in some relational system (marriage, family, workplace) where the people involved have learned to walk with various limps. We always do—part of a fallen world demands it.

But they don’t have to make us balk.

At our house, I close my computer a little more when Courtney comes into the room to tell me a story. I say yes to more of her plans and recognize that my own are not always as important. She plays more pickleball these days and spends more of the budget visiting friends for lunch or coffee. I’m glad.

Every time I am reminded that as other people get healthier, I, too, have to die to self and learn to serve in a new way. Each moment is an invitation to a better relationship. Her health forces my own health, and we are both better for it.

They’ll sit with me and lament that they do not feel like [insert person they care about] [insert action] enough, even though the person sitting in front of me always [insert good thing(s) said person does]. The math is simple:

My Benevolent Actions Toward You * My Expectations of You = Your Responsibility Toward Me

I’ve aced this formula because I’ve used it too many times in life, especially in marriage.

Here are some ways this formula can show itself again and again:

• Your kids frustrate you because they do not communicate enough gratitude for the dinner you prepared.

• Speaking of kids, how could they pick being a history major after you sacrificed so much to be sure they got into the college of their dreams?

• Speaking of college, you’ve helped all of your college friends move but when it is time for you to move, all of your friends are busy.

• Speaking of being busy, you always stop to listen to how your spouse’s day went but when it is time for you to share, your spouse has started browsing Netflix.

• Speaking of Netflix, why hasn’t Reed Hastings given you some shares of NFLX after all of the hours you’ve spent on the platform?

A tinge of “after all I’ve done for you” belies our motives in these interactions. What we really want is our unspoken expectations to be met, not to actually serve and sacrifice for another’s good.

Giving to Receive = Frustration

I love getting this equation wrong and getting frustrated every time.

I recall a time where I found myself frustrated with Courtney because of after all the things I did for her, I didn’t feel like she talked with me enough or demonstrated enough gratitude.

I’m a simple man with simple needs. I work, I mow the lawn, I make sure the cars work and have the oil changed, I preach good sermons so she can be edified, I have health insurance for all her diabetic needs, and I don’t get mad at her every month when the grocery budget goes deep into the red.

Basically a perfect husband.

All I need is for Courtney to hit that target I’ve created that she cannot see, and if she could see the target, I’d adjust it on the fly so she wouldn’t. It’s simple, really. Reciprocate in ways that I expect, even though I don’t tell you, and don’t get mad when I change the rules.

This approach is constantly frustrating and never fulfilling. When we give to receive, we find ourselves annoyed with the people we love the most (but also people we don’t know at all). We put ourselves in the middle of our universe—making any act of perceived benevolence a guise for others serving us.

The Kitchen Table Rebuke

When men feel this way, there is one place to go: other men. This is why guys get together, right? To talk about the things we do for our families and friends that are more loving than anything we get back.

Luckily for me, we had another guy living with us: Peter. Our house at the time had a one-bedroom apartment on the other side of the carport. Peter was our first, and only, long-term tenant. We went to church together. He wanted a family to be around and we wanted his money (but more so, his presence in our lives).

Hey, speaking of, that was another way I was being great—generating passive income for the family and being nice to a friend.

So I go and sit down at Peter’s table to get my affirming, “Yeah, man! I get it.” That’s what bros do.

He squares me up and says, “You don’t serve her so she’ll serve you; you serve her because that’s the right thing to do.”

I should’ve evicted him for confronting the landlord.

Giving to Give = Freedom

As much as we hate it, we are often questioning people’s motives—even those closest to us. Why? Because we’re conditioned to assume they’re in it for something. So much of life is transactional that it feels inevitable to view people the same way.

• Why are you asking me how my day went?

• Why did you mow the lawn?

• Why did you do the dishes without me asking?

• Why are you being so nice? What did you do wrong?

Giving out of love—for the good of the other—is both freeing and disorienting. The disorienting comes because we are so used to ascribing motive that we are shocked when something comes with no strings. The freedom comes because now we are not beholden to someone’s response to feel justified for our acts.

Now What?

I assume every reader here thinks, “Of course you give simply because it is the right thing.” This isn’t calculus. I see who subscribes to this Substack and you folks are no fools.

To those I know, I know you’re loving and sacrificial. To those I don’t, I’m going to assume you’re loving and sacrificial.

But there’s still a problem: our benevolence runs out.

Even a kind motive gets twisted over time. We have six, seven, maybe ten thankless acts in us before we get a little perturbed that nobody is picking up what we’re putting down (unless you’re a mom, then you have at least 20x that number).

In those moments when you’re on empty, can you pour out more than you thought imagined?

I want to challenge you to take a significant relationship in your life and make the following statement:

“For the next month, all my service toward you is because I love you. Read nothing else into it and know that I expect nothing from it.”

Thirty days doesn’t seem like a long time, but try it.

• Husbands, can you serve your wives without assuming amorous reciprocation?

• Employees, can you go above and beyond toward your co-workers simply because you want to serve them and not for the notoriety—or promotion—you might receive?

• Friends, can you buy lunch this week for someone, and then again the next week, and then again the next week, without ever expecting to hear, “I’ll get the next one”?

And when that month is up? Do it again. Become the person at home, at work, at church, or on a walk in the neighborhood, who wants nothing from anyone except what is best for the person across from them.

Like Peter was toward me, sitting at that kitchen table—which now sits in my house as a reminder of good lessons (and a place to set the desktop).

We must constantly train in the ways of grace if we want to actually flourish.

The Vows We Make

Everyone vows. I currently have several I can recall that impact the way I live. One of mine has to do with vacations. My family didn’t take many vacations growing up. I remember a few—New Orleans, San Antonio a time or two—and I loved them. I loved the time our Ford Tempo broke down on the way to San Antonio and my dad found a way to take care of us. My vow: always travel with family and make memories. Courtney and I travel with our boys several times a year to see the world and connect at a different pace.

A lot of vows come from wounds and pain, others come from great memories, all of them form us. The ones from wounds are often the ones that stick. People build entire habits out of the pain they’ve experienced—an unfortunate part of the human condition.

Words that Wound

One night, Courtney and I were at a cafe with two others. One of them was our friend Karen, whom I originally got to know as a co-worker at an early morning Starbucks job. Karen was also a student at seminary with me so our friendship had staying power. She and Courtney hit it off, and Karen calls Courtney “Grumplet” to this day for some reason. Karen’s friend was also there.

Four of us at a table: three girls and me.

I’ve never been much for table talk. I’ve fielded the question, “Are you OK?” enough times that my answer could be on autopilot: “Yep.” If I’m feeling the need for additional words, I will add, “I don’t have much to say” or “I don’t feel like talking.” People in the South like to go to lunch after church—in groups, at that. For at least the past decade, I’ve rarely attended. When I do go, I almost always regret it.

This particular night felt like a “Yep” night. I didn’t say much, at least not as much as others—especially Courtney. She followed her usual strategy of asking great questions, following them up, laughing, and making people feel loved by her interest in them.

After that dinner we got back in the car and I turned to her and gave the feedback I knew Courtney needed:

“You talked too much.”

What business did I have telling Courtney anything? Maybe this is where I thought being brutally honest would be a good thing. Courtney would receive it and move on. That outcome did not happen.

What do I think actually happened? I think at that moment Courtney heard my asinine critique of a harmless and enjoyable dinner and vowed, “I will never talk too much again.” You might think, “No way that happened,” but how many parts of your life have a vow attached to them? How many “always” or “never” statements form how you live your life today? Many of them come from when we were young.

• You commit to never say “no” to your kids because you were told “no” too often when you were young.

• Your family didn’t have pets so you promised yourself you’d have chickens in your backyard for the fresh eggs.

• You learned being vulnerable would get you mocked so you turned into the class clown.

Did Courtney look at me in that parking lot and say, “You’re right, Hans. I did talk too much”? Of course not. Did she ask, “Why are you being a jerk?” She didn’t ask that, either. I’ve learned since then that when you’re depressed, you don’t have much of a desire to push back because of the emotional energy it takes.

What I do know is, regardless of an intentional vow or not, Courtney began to shift—she stopped talking as much when we were with others.

I confess I was complicit in breaking something inside of her that was so core to her identity that, when challenged, she didn’t know what to do. The person people loved talking to being brazenly critiqued by her husband about, of all things, talking.

She didn’t deserve me, but she was stuck with me.

You’re reading from the “Real Life” section. This portion of the site highlights the reality that who we are as we lead directly impacts who we are at home—and vice versa. Reply back or post a comment and tell me about the vows you’ve made or the mistakes you’ve made that have produced vows in others.