With Purpose Success, part 76

In fact, Maddy and I have found that to make our marriage work, we have to continually bring "purpose" to this relationship, just as we've been discussing with regards to work, or charitable involvements. I've come to notice that for so many people, their marriage can simply get lost within the pushes, pulls, and pressures of their everyday lives. It appears that many marriages wrongly assume that automatic pilot will keep things in place. I truly don't think it happens that way for most of us. In fact, I'm convinced that just as a garden regularly needs replanting or a business may need continual infusions of investment capital, our marriages also need to be refreshed-even rebooted-on a regular basis. There are lots of relatively easy activities that can help to refresh our romance: simple acts of kindness during a stressful period, an unexpected gift, a playful dinner for two-and so on. 

However, one of the key ways that we repeatedly remind ourselves of the sacredness of our bond is by getting remarried every year-again and again. Yes, that's right. Maddy and I have gotten remarried every year on or near our anniversary for twenty-five years-and counting. When we originally married, on Thanksgiving in 1983, we had such a great time at the ceremony and on our honeymoon that I asked Maddy if she'd consider remarrying me every year. And, to add a bit of spice to this ritual, we set the rules that we would do so in a different religion and in a different location each year. 

We haven't missed a year yet, and so far, we've been remarried in a castle in Bath, England, by an Anglican priest; in a Hopi ceremony in 

Sedona, Arizona; and at Marie Antoinette's Chapel of Love in Versailles, France. We've been married by the skiing judge of Vail on the high slopes of Vail mountain; in a tai chi ceremony (followed by a nude soak in the mineral hot springs) at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California; by a tribal chief and his toddler grandchildren in a Navajo ceremony in Tucson, Arizona; and by the ship's captain while cruising through the Sea of Cambodia off the coast of Thailand. We've recited our vows in Grace Church in Greenwich Village; in a Buddhist ceremony in Berkeley, California; in a Mayan wedding at the top of the Chichen Itza pyramid in the Yucatan; and, of course, at the Chapel of Love in Las Vegas (and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I was dressed in a white Elvis jumpsuit with red trim-gold medallion and all). We've even been "married" twice by our children-once in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and a few years later on a secluded beach on the remote island of Anegada in the British Virgin 

Islands.

We also had our kids perform a formal remarriage ceremony for my parents in celebration of their sixtieth anniversary at our home in California. 

When my dad strolled down the aisle in his white dinner jacket arm in arm with my beaming mom and then our kids launched into the service that they had written together, it was an incredibly powerful moment in all of our lives-for every reason you can think of. 

For Maddy and me, getting remarried each year is definitely a lot of fun. But we also have found that these occasions are like valuable sanctuaries when we can look critically at the year that just passed and openly discuss what went wrong and what went right. These moments have become punctuation points in our relationship when we can stop the train, take a deep breath, and rechart our course. When I was younger, I believed that the nouns and verbs of our lives were what mattered most. 

Maddy and I have both come to appreciate the special importance of the punctuation points!