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But gaining such knowledge of another person isn't easy. Our backgrounds bear few similarities. Mark's father and mother divorced when he was small. While his mother finished her master's degree in social work, she and her four children moved often. Mark once attended four different schools in the same year. The high school he graduated from had an enrollment larger than the population of my hometown.

I grew up on the family farm where my grandfather lived. I attended the same school for 12 years, graduating in a class of 32 students. To this day, my mother sleeps in the room she was born in.

When Mark and I were married, I didn't fully appreciate the way our separate pasts would affect our combined future. As we worked through our early adjustments, getting to know Mark's family helped me see our relationship in more than just two dimensions—his side and mine. Slowly, over those first few years, our relationships with our in-laws helped us recognize there was a third dimension to our marriage— the family experiences that had shaped each of our contrasting styles.

Mark had left home at 17, and he had lived alone for many years after that. Time to himself was a natural coping mechanism when tensions ran high. Later, after separating himself from a tense situation, he could talk things through more objectively.

Whenever we fought, Mark needed time and space to sort through his feelings. But I was insistent. My personality pressed for an immediate resolution. Mark felt trapped and pressured by my style. I felt abandoned and offended by his.

I didn't like "agreeing to disagree" then talking things out later. I hated being at odds with anyone I was close to, and I wasn't used to solitary time. My identity was firmly entrenched in my place within a close-knit family.

Over the years, we've blended our two styles, thanks to our gradual understanding that those styles had an origin outside our marriage. Mark and I weren't fatally incompatible, just two different people whose personalities had been shaped by different experiences.

Growing to know and understand each other's families became an important key to unlocking that puzzle. I now share a part in Mark's family history, as he does in mine. And all the family stories, both tragic and happy, open a new window into the growing-up years of the man I love.

When I cheer for Mark as he finishes a marathon, I think of how God used running to bring self-discipline and fulfillment to my goal-oriented husband during the chaotic years of his late teens. When disappointments get me down and Mark reassures me that things will look better tomorrow, I hear his grandmother joking about the day this eternal optimist spilled his milk at breakfast, then joyously pronounced that no one needed to worry—a few drops were still in the glass.

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