My husband and I were recently asked to be on a podcast. The interviewer Gadifele Moeng, wanted to know the secret of our immensely happy 30-year marriage and partnership.

And so, I thought about what was a testament to the power, perseverance and passion of our union.

And I think it was a journey of losing our masks. Being able to be utterly ourselves independent and yet intertwined. Being each other’s greatest advocates in everything we do, both in union, in parallel and in branching out into new ventures, boldly and independently but joined at the heart.

Knowing that we were marrying one another’s families has been our greatest gift. Because at the heart of it all is supporting one another’s largest dreams, our biggest legacies.

It is not focusing on our partner’s attributes that we once might have found challenging.

It is being utterly vulnerable. It’s owning one’s story. It is understanding; not only one’s love language, but one’s language of pain and where they were formed and how they were patterned. How they became our becoming and how in greater consciousness, we can see them for what they are – just a behavior pattern, a subliminal instinct, a learnt behavior, a need fulfilled. The game changer comes when you lose judgement. You find peace.

We are both conflict averse. We love peace and harmony. We love our children. We love architecture and animals and travel. We love being in nature and in quiet solitude, but we both equally love being with wonderful friends. Our lives are rich because of relationships of deep connection.

After 30 years together – 25 of which were building up a company together – we watched our children fly free to their own adventures of the soul.

We are not just happy; we are more passionately in love than we ever have been. In our sixties! It is surreal, but it is real.

It is a loving life. It is loving peace. It is loving intimacy. Passion and pain cannot co-exist. Some would dispute that, but I mean emotional pain, not fifty shades of grey pain.

Intimacy. It is loving life as it is. It’s surrendering. Intimacy – it is a form of faith, and faith in form.

Because as my beautiful sister, Gadifele Moeng writes in “Love Lies Here”

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find another song” – Plato

And finally, Gadifele quotes James Baldwin, who says:

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live with”

Thank you for tribing with me.