Jack Gindi
Fifty years ago, Meredith and I stood before family and friends, promising to love each other “for better or worse.” We were two kids from Brooklyn who thought we understood what those words meant. Today, fifty years later, we totally do.
Balance in Relationships
What lies between our “I do” and today is a story of discovering what balance truly means in relationships. Together we went through decades of raising four children, weathering financial storms, legal battles, bankruptcy, and the loss of a child. We learned that balance isn’t about perfect equality. It’s about daily deposits of love, honor, and appreciation that compound over time into something unbreakable.
When life tested us with devastating challenges, we discovered that sometimes the strongest love requires different expressions at different times. There were seasons when we needed space to heal individually while maintaining our deep connection. What mattered was the foundation we’d built through years of consistent acts of love.
These experiences taught me something profound about balance in relationships. Balance isn’t about everything being equal – it’s about being intentional with our emotional investments and understanding that strong relationships require daily maintenance.
Harvard’s longest-running study, the Harvard Study of Adult Development(running for 85 years), confirms what many know intuitively: relationships determine our well-being more than money or career success. Yet, how often do we treat our most important relationships as an afterthought, giving them only leftover energy?
Daily Deposits
Through working with families, I’ve learned about “daily deposits” – choosing two people each day and sending them a note of love, honor, or appreciation. This isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about noticing the small things that matter. When your son works late to help a coworker, when your spouse makes coffee without being asked, when your child shows patience with a sibling – these moments deserve recognition.
The power lies not in receiving but in giving. When we deliberately look for qualities to appreciate in others, we begin to see them differently. Our perspective shifts from focusing on what’s missing to celebrating what’s present. This change literally rewires our brains, making gratitude our default mode.
I’ve watched families transform through this practice. Parents who felt disconnected from teenagers suddenly found common ground. Siblings who constantly bickered began supporting each other. Couples who felt distant rediscovered why they fell in love. The deposits don’t just strengthen the recipient – they change the giver, creating a positive cycle.
Our children were watching all of this. They learned about relationships not from what we told them but from what they witnessed daily. How we spoke during stress, how we prioritized time, how we handled conflict and recovery – these became their template for what love looks like. This forced us to ask: what kind of marriage are we modeling? What lessons are we passing down?
Throughout our most challenging times, we kept making those daily deposits. A gesture of love, showing up for each other when it was needed. Simply sharing ourselves and being there for each other. These small acts became the bridge that carried us through every storm and kept our connection strong.
Life Rhythms and Consistent Expressions of Appreciation
We learned that balance means accepting that relationships ebb and flow like tides. There are seasons when work demands more attention, times when children need extra support, periods when our emotional reserves run low. The key is communicating about these rhythms and consistently making deposits even during difficult times.
Today, after fifty years together, we understand that balance in relationships isn’t a destination but a daily practice. It’s choosing to see the good in someone even when they’re struggling. It’s expressing gratitude for ordinary kindness rather than taking them for granted.
Looking back, I see that our greatest relationship challenges weren’t caused by major betrayals or dramatic conflicts. They were the result of neglect – failing to make regular deposits of appreciation, taking each other’s contributions for granted, assuming that love alone would sustain us.
After five decades together, we’ve learned that strong relationships don’t happen by accident. They’re built through thousands of small choices, daily acts of love and appreciation that accumulate over time into something that can weather any storm.
Creating a Strong Foundation
The principle is simple but powerful: what we pay attention to grows, and what we appreciate appreciates. Whether raising children, building friendships, or nurturing marriages, consistent daily deposits create the foundation that everything else is built upon. I invite you to observe: are you making daily deposits in your relationships? If not, start today. Choose two people and send them a note of appreciation. Do this without expecting anything in return. Simply observe what happens – to them, to your relationships, and most importantly, to you.