What You Told Us You Needed

Mark

When we started this series four weeks ago, we thought we were writing about us. Certainty and variety. Significance and connection. Growth. Contribution. We were looking at how these six needs show up in our marriage, our businesses, and the life we've built together.

We didn't expect how many of you would write back or leave comments telling us that it wasn't just about us.

Renee

I want to start where the series started because it's the story I still think about most. For years, I said yes to almost everything at Eden and Xen's school: PTA president, room mom, Super Scientist teacher, book fair host. I loved being involved, right up until fifth grade, when I finally admitted I was running on empty.

What I didn't expect after we published that blog was how many of you would tell us some version of the same story. Maybe yours wasn't the PTA. Maybe it was a committee, your business, your family, or simply being the person everyone knows they can call. The circumstances were different, but the pattern was familiar. You care so much about other people that you don't stop to ask whether you have anything left to give.

One reader shared a framework from a qigong teacher that has stuck with me. She described our energy in thirds. One third goes out in service to others, another third comes back in through replenishment, and the final third goes into reserve, like energy in the bank for later. I had always thought about giving and replenishing. I hadn't really considered the importance of that reserve.

Mark

My version of that lesson was smaller and, frankly, more embarrassing. For years, I answered work calls at almost any hour, going all the way back to my sales days at Time Warner, which became Bright House Networks and then Spectrum. Renee would watch me answer the phone at 9 p.m. and ask, "Is there really such a thing as a cable emergency?"

There wasn't. There still isn't.

But it took me a long time to understand that being generous didn't require being endlessly available. What surprised me after that post was how many of you recognized that instinct, especially when the quality you're proudest of can also be the one quietly running you into the ground. Nobody told us to stop being generous. Instead, your responses reminded us that we're allowed to be among the people our own lives are designed to support. We hadn't really seen it that way until you reflected it back to us.

Renee

When we moved into certainty and variety, we wrote about one of the differences Mark and I have been navigating pretty much forever. I like a plan. Mark is much more comfortable leaving room for possibility.

Once again, you told us we weren't alone.

One couple who has spent 23 years running a business together shared how easily one person can come up with an idea and the other can immediately assume it's either right or wrong, when really they may simply be seeing it from a different angle. Another couple who has been together for more than 40 years told us that same tension is still alive in their relationship too.

There's something reassuring about hearing that from people who have been doing this even longer than we have. Maybe some of these differences aren't problems we're eventually supposed to solve. Maybe they're simply part of building a life with another person who isn't always going to see things exactly the way you do.

Mark

The significance and connection post sparked some of the most interesting responses. We wrote about the imaginary scoreboard that can sometimes appear in a relationship. Who did more? Who's carrying more? Who's more tired? Whose work gets noticed?

One couple shared a perspective that changed how we thought about it. Trying to make every contribution equal can actually become another form of keeping score. The goal isn't necessarily an even split. It's making sure you're both still working toward the same outcome.

Equal isn't the same as aligned.

Once you stop measuring whether every contribution is perfectly equal, you can pay more attention to what actually matters: whether you're still headed toward the same place together.

Renee

I think that's what I've enjoyed most about the responses to this series. We started out thinking we were sharing some of what we've learned, and somewhere along the way it became much more of a conversation.

You shared experiences from your own marriages and businesses. Couples who have been together longer than we have reminded us that some of the things we're still figuring out aren't necessarily things we should have mastered by now. And several of you gave us language for things we'd experienced but hadn't quite known how to describe.

We certainly didn't invent the Six Human Needs, and after writing about certainty, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution, I can confidently say we haven't mastered them either. But we have gotten a little better at recognizing how they show up in our lives. Thanks to some of you, we're also looking at a few of them differently than we did four weeks ago.

Mark

Which makes it fitting that we ended the series with growth. Four weeks ago, we didn't know a reader's qigong teacher would change the way Renee thought about giving. We didn't know couples who had been together even longer than we have would remind us that some differences aren't problems we're supposed to solve. And we hadn't made the distinction between equal and aligned until one of you shared it with us.

Apparently, we weren't done learning just because we were the ones writing the blog.

Mark & Renee

If you've been reading along these past four weeks, thank you. And an extra thank you to those of you who took the time to write back, leave a comment, or share a little piece of your own story with us.

We started this series thinking we'd share some of what we've learned after more than 26 years together and 14 years of building businesses side by side. We didn't expect so many of you to share what you've learned with us.

Some of your stories made us laugh. Some made us feel a little less alone in the things we're still figuring out. And some gave us ideas and language we'll probably continue using long after this series is over.

It seems especially appropriate that we ended with growth because apparently that was happening on both sides of the conversation.

Thank you for being part of it.