An Investment in Emergence: 35 Years, Four Children, and the Generational Power of Everyday Faithfulness

Looking back on our journey together, my wife Patti and I feel such gratitude. We met over 40 years ago at the beginning of college and now approach our 35th wedding anniversary. Over those decades, four wonderful children (three sons and a daughter) blessed our lives, ranging from 31 down to our youngest, David, who is 25. Born roughly two years apart, watching them grow from energetic kids into healthy adults remains the great privilege of our lives.

Recently, David got engaged. With his upcoming wedding, all four of our adult children have selected their life partners. Together with our two cherished young grandchildren, our family tree grows in ways bringing us joy and unmeasurable contentment.

Reflecting on our children and the spouses joining our family, a striking commonality caught my attention: the parents of every single chosen life partner remain married, each navigating several decades of continuous, committed marriage. Not a single set of in-law parents has experienced divorce or remarriage.

In modern society, historical demographic data reveals divorce rates hovering between 40% and 50%. Flipping a coin four times and landing heads every time feels like a fun surprise. Yet, looking across independent households, finding four separate couples maintaining original marriages into their 50s and 60s yields a forward-looking probability around 5% (roughly a 1-in-20 chance). In our extended family sample of four, we hit 100%. What gives? Why does standard math seem to fail here? Did our family simply experience an extraordinary stroke of luck? Yes and no. Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca observed:

"Luck occurs when preparation meets opportunity."

In effect, we generated and guided our own luck.

Statisticians capture this Stoic concept through Bayesian probability. While general population statistics measure past averages across random households, predicting a specific family trajectory requires accounting for starting conditions, what 18th-century mathematician Thomas Bayes termed "priors."

In our family, preparation created our priors. When choosing life partners, our children never drew randomly from a blind population pool. The intentional environment our children experienced provided a steadying hand on the scale, altering future-facing probabilities relative to demographic averages. Our family priors made the outcome natural: our children internalized healthy relational habits, causing them to seek out and attract life partners holding similar core values.

In looking back at how Patti and I built our home over the last 35 years, we lived by an implicit personal philosophy, the CCD Framework: Committed, Completing, and Devoted.

1. Committed: Personal Integrity and the Power of Promise-Keeping

Commitment starts with our willingness to take stands, make commitments, and act as genuine promise-keepers. Building a life requires making your word your bond, far beyond legal contracts. Saying we will do something means people trust our follow-through. For our children, this commitment created a lasting foundation. The "Hulett Family Business" provided a stable, predictable, and love-based framework across the years. This framework maintained a uniform baseline, adapting tailored commitments to meet each child's unique individual needs. Our children grew up knowing they could count on this framework every single day. Yet, life changes unexpectedly, sometimes creating conditions where keeping a pledge encounters friction. In our family, true commitment includes a pathway for relational repair: if you cannot keep a promise, say you are sorry, transparently explain why, and do everything within your power to correct the situation.

2. Completing: Synergy, Teamwork, and Protecting Blind Spots

Completing represents the quiet magic Patti and I shared for over four decades. While we hold shared commitments to our family and each other, our individual personalities remain deeply complementary. Marriage remains an ongoing work in progress involving a broad spectrum of human emotions. Different personalities create natural tension between us, and within constructive tension we find our completing. In a functional way, completing one another means standing together as two empowered individuals who share a clear vision and intention for the future. You actively look for ways to protect your spouse’s blind spots, stepping in with your strengths where the other possesses a vulnerability. Process transforms a marriage into a unified team designed to navigate life's storms.

3. Devoted: Faith, Grace, and Navigating Uncertainty

Finally, devotion forms the spiritual anchor of our home. Raising our children in the Catholic faith tradition provided a foundation centered on love, grace, empathy, and forgiveness. We lived by a simple principle: God judges; human beings love. While avoiding judgment presents challenges, we strive daily in our devotion to lead with grace. By investing in their faith, our children learned to invest in themselves, their communities, and their future relationships. Devotion helps navigate uncertainty. The world presents unpredictable turns, yet a devoted faith gives us confidence to step forward, knowing a strong foundation supports us. Studying time-tested world religious traditions reveals shared core faith pillars across cultures. For our children and grandchildren, the specific faith delivery institution matters far less than choosing a tradition enabling ongoing devotion to our grandchildren.

The Ultimate Outcome: Emergence

The primary outcome of the CCD Framework centers on a concept called Emergence.

Emergence represents the idea where small, intentional steps today allow a better version of ourselves to naturally grow over time. Emergence yields a return on investment. The concept represents the better person, stronger spouse, and wiser parent you become because of daily investments, sacrifices, and habits cultivated in your present self.

The idea of daily practice shaping future identity possesses deep philosophical roots. Historian Will Durant distilled Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics into a famous phrase:

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

Long before that, Catholic theologians described sanctification as a gradual unfolding of character through grace and daily fidelity. Existential thinkers like Viktor Frankl noted how self-actualization emerges as a byproduct of dedicating yourself to a purpose and loving another person.

By practicing CCD daily, Patti and I invested in emergence for ourselves and our children. We offered no formal rulebook on choosing a spouse; we provided an environment where promise-keeping, teamwork, and grace represented the standard baseline. Consequently, our children emerged into young adults holding an innate appreciation for healthy relationship dynamics. Finding their life partners meant experiencing a mutual attraction with individuals possessing similar qualities, raised in homes built on comparable foundations.

To my wife Patti: thank you for over 40 years of friendship, almost 35 years of marriage, and for completing me daily.

To the wonderful parents of our children’s spouses: thank you for raising grounded, loving children, and for the connection we share.

And to our four children and their partners: we celebrate the adults you are today, looking forward with joy as the future of our family emerges across generations.

About the author: Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education organization. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides entrepreneurial services. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.

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