What Do Your Marriage and Swimming with Sharks Have in Common?
Last night I had the rare privilege of attending a talk by Record-Breaking Athlete and Master Storyteller Diana Nyad. When we first purchased tickets to the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California, I knew that I had heard Diana’s name before but was a little fuzzy on the details of her story.
On September 2, 2013, at the age of sixty-four, Diana Nyad swam 111 miles from Cuba to Key West, Florida in fifty-three hours. Millions of people from around the world cheered her on, willing her to be the first to make this brutal crossing without the aid of a shark tank or fins. After thirty-five years and four crushing failures, she emerged on to the sands of Florida triumphant.
I am stunned by her perseverance. She swam for fifty-three hours straight. She was thrown around by 60 miles per hour winds and huge swells and caught in the powerful current of the Gulf Stream. The water was cold and infested with sharks and deadly Box Jellyfish. She couldn’t eat as many calories as her body was expending by swimming.
I am in awe of her physical stamina and talent for swimming, and even more so of her tenacity and heart. Don’t get me wrong, her physical prowess is remarkable. I have been known to cry after 20 minutes on a rowing machine at the gym. I’ve also been known to complain about the cold weather when it dips to 75 degrees. And she was sixty-four years old when she accomplished her record breaking feat!
But even more than all of that, I was most impressed with the way she stuck to her dream. Growing up in Miami, Florida, she used to look out over the water and wonder about Cuba. As a young girl, she put it in her head to know Cuba someday. Her heroic swim opened the doors for Cuban-U.S. diplomacy and brought her honors at both the Palace in Havana and the White House in Washington DC. She never gave up and she succeeded.
So, what do your marriage and swimming with sharks have in common?
Many couples, over the years, have asked me to explain what I see as the difference between couples that stay married and those that divorce.
While there are plenty of research-based answers to that question such as:-
- They share appreciations,
- learn to resolve conflict,
- don’t go to bed angry,
- spend quality time together,
- remember date night, etc.
The simplest answer is this:
They don’t give up in the face of challenge. The only real difference between the married and the divorced is that the married haven’t given up on the quality of their relationship. They have stamina, tenacity and heart.
Couples that make it in marriage are those that, like Diana, honor their dream. Like her, they focus on their commitment and they ask for help when they need it. They put together their team of supporters and they never stop swimming despite the sharks that lurk below.
Diana Nyad in her New York Times best-selling book, Find a Way, is quoted as saying, “The spirit is larger than the body. The body is pathetic compared to what we have inside of us.”
What do you have inside of you?
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