NFA Finance

The easy answer would be to tell you a story.

Where we were.
What happened.
Who said what.
How it started.

But at 47 years old, I think the more interesting question is:

What makes someone significant?

I’ve had relationships. I’ve loved people. I’ve built a life with someone. I’ve been married. I’ve had relationships end. I’ve had people come into my life who I thought might be there forever, and I’ve watched life prove otherwise.

And somewhere along the way, my definition of a partner changed.

When you’re younger, you think love is the answer.

If you love each other enough, you’ll figure everything else out.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Love matters. A lot.

But two people can genuinely love each other and still want completely different lives.

One person wants roots.
The other wants wheels.

One wants predictability.
The other comes alive in uncertainty.

One wants to protect what already exists.
The other can’t stop thinking about what could exist next.

Neither person necessarily has to be wrong.

They may just be going in different directions.

And I’ve realized something about myself that I probably should have understood a long time ago:

I need motion.

I need to build.

I need the next deal, the next idea, the next road, the next business, the next project, the next challenge.

That’s not something I turn on Monday morning and shut off Friday afternoon.

It’s who I am.

For years, I sometimes treated that part of myself like something I needed to manage around a relationship.

Maybe don’t work so much.

Maybe don’t chase that idea.

Maybe don’t take that trip.

Maybe slow down.

Maybe someday.

And there is absolutely a place for compromise in a relationship.

But there’s a difference between compromise and slowly becoming a smaller version of yourself.

That’s the part I understand differently today.

The right relationship shouldn’t require either person to shrink.

It should create room for both people to expand.

Maybe the person beside you doesn’t have to want every crazy thing you want.

They don’t have to build the business with you.

They don’t have to understand why you’re awake at midnight thinking about an idea nobody else can see yet.

They don’t even have to get in the car every time you decide to chase something across the country.

But they have to understand you.

And you have to understand them.

That’s partnership.

Not ownership.

Not permission.

Not somebody sacrificing their entire identity so the other person can live theirs.

Two complete people choosing to build something together without destroying what made either of them complete in the first place.

That’s a much different definition of love than I had when I was 25.

And maybe that’s what age gives you.

Not all the answers.

Just better questions.

Instead of:

Does this person love me?

Maybe ask:

Can we build a life where both of us can become who we’re supposed to become?

Because love without alignment can become resentment.

Chemistry without compatibility eventually gets expensive.

And history, no matter how long it is, doesn’t guarantee a future.

I’ve also learned that somebody can be incredibly important to a chapter of your life without necessarily belonging in every chapter that follows.

That doesn’t erase what happened.

It doesn’t make the love fake.

It doesn’t mean somebody failed.

Sometimes people teach each other things.

Sometimes they build things together.

Sometimes they raise families.

Sometimes they survive incredibly difficult years together.

And sometimes, eventually, the road splits.

I’ve spent a lot of my life moving fast enough that I didn’t always stop and ask where the road was actually going.

I’m asking now.

What kind of life do I want?

What do I want to build?

Where do I want to go?

Who am I becoming?

And if somebody is going to stand beside me for that journey, there’s another question that matters just as much:

Who are they becoming?

Because maybe finding your significant other isn’t really about finding someone who completes you.

Maybe it’s finding somebody who doesn’t need you to be incomplete in order for the relationship to work.

Somebody with their own fire.

Their own purpose.

Their own direction.

And somehow, instead of those two lives competing with each other, they make each other bigger.

So how did I meet my significant other?

Maybe I haven’t answered that question yet.

And for the first time in my life, I’m completely okay with that.

Because these days, I’m far less interested in simply finding someone to walk beside me.

I’m interested in building a life worth sharing.

And if the right person eventually walks into it—

she won’t have to ask me to become less of myself to make room for her.

There will already be room for both of us.

NFA

How did you meet your significant other?