I didn’t want to be married anymore. Our relationship wasn’t the fun, ideal, romantic version I had created in my head, and all I wanted was to get in my car and drive far away from the life that had consumed me. Expressionless, I stood holding my nine-month-old baby as I watched our three-year-old tear apart the toys…again. No husband in sight and no light at the end of the exhausting reality. If this was marriage…I was starting to think I had promised more than I could deliver. Eight years later, on the back side of an incredible journey, I can confidently proclaim I believe wholeheartedly in those vows of marriage. Our life isn’t always fun, ideal or romantic, but it is truly the only life I want to lead. I didn’t come to this conclusion standing still, however. Once I got my feet moving from where I felt stalled, I found strength, beauty, and joy in the most surprising places. Those discoveries came on the heels of my decision to grow. It was a choice to work through it…it was a choice to learn what I could about myself and our marriage…it was a choice to be open to changing my behavior first. Choosing to Grow: Through Marriage is the story of how I got here. It is not a fix-all manual, but it is a real account of the possibilities. We all have the capacity for change and growth…we just have to choose to do it.
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The Who, What, When, Why, Where of Meagan
& Choosing To Grow: Through Marriage
Who? Who are you – tell us about yourself.
My full and legal name is Meagan McGuire Frank. I cling to the McGuire part of my name because I am proud of my half-Irish identity. My blue eyes, brown curls and freckled face would make you think I am entirely Irish… that, and my passionate emotions.
Yes, I admit it. I have fierce opinions and a prominent competitive edge. (ask my mom and three siblings) I sing loudly, I care deeply, I cry often, I adore laughing, and I LOVE to tell stories.
It’s true that some of my personality has been dampened by the arrival of our three children, but I will say, however, now that they are getting older (11, 8, and 5) I am finding the energy to re-invest in my authentic self.
My husband and I have been together for 17 years, married 13 of them. We have spent a large portion of our lives on soccer fields and in hockey rinks, as players, coaches, parents and fans.
My husband and I are both Colorado College graduates and we run our lives in a similar plan of study. CC offers a unique learning experience where the students take one class at a time with a block break before the next class. Our real-life block plan looks like this: Summers in Colorado where my husband runs the Colorado Renaissance Festival. Fall block is spent separated. My husband is in Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh show and I am back in Minnesota with our children. Winter, we hunker down for the Minnesota winter when our kids and my husband can spend countless hours on rinks of ice, both inside and out. My husband coaches a college hockey team, and I find what joy I can in cross-country skiing, carpooling and winter beauty. The spring is our block break…the transition back to Colorado and from frozen to thawed. Through all of our running, I have always made time to write.
I celebrate the seasons of our life, and I am invested in letting the constant change positively shape me.
What? What did you write – tell us about your book.
My first book is called Choosing to Grow: Through Marriage. It is not my first published piece (I was a newspaper reporter for a while and I have a couple freelance magazine articles too). It is a creative, non-fiction memoir about the journey I took to mend and eventually build my marriage to be the blessing it is supposed to be.
I collected 150 questionnaires, interviewed 70 women and read 25 titles as I researched for the tools I needed to improve our marriage. I talked with women who had been married over 60 years, and women who had been married two months. I grew with every insight and my story started to weave itself in and out of the stories of everyone else. Putting my marriage into the context of society, was what I needed to do in order to see some of the weaker parts of our own relationship. I had to have a context in which to fully analyze my own issues, so I set out to find it.
When? – Two options:
-When did you first realize you wanted to be an author?
I knew I would have to write starting when I was seven years old. As soon as I could put complete sentences down on the striped-page of my Dear Annie diary, I knew that writing was what I was meant to do. I never got frantic about how I would become an author, because I just knew that no matter if anyone ever read what I had to write, I had to write it nonetheless. I am just so grateful the opportunities started to match my desires.
-When did the idea for your book hit you?
Choosing to Grow absolutely hit me in the middle of the night as I prayed my way through darkness and depression. This book was the answer to my prayer. Not just because I could work toward an authored book, but because I was moved, in no uncertain terms, to pursue this entire project.
Why? Why should we choose to read your book? What’s in it for us? What are we going to get out of it?
I tell people all the time that even if no one reads this book, I will not regret the eight years I spent in its creation. It changed my life…it saved our marriage.
True, this is my story, and if you don’t know me, you will hardly care I’ve written it down. But this book is also the story of the 150 questionnaire responders, the 70 women I interviewed and the experts I read. It is their story too. All of those stories offer readers a place to engage, a moment of aha, a second of inspiration.
Readers will get out of it, what they are willing to see. There is a level of honesty and vulnerability necessary to make this book poignant for any given reader, but with appropriate willingness, there is a lot to gain from the wisdom I recorded. I simply reported the wisdom, and readers who may not want to go through the difficulties I endured, may find respite in these pages.
Where? Where can someone who is interested get a copy of your book?
My book is available in a number of places. You can buy directly from the publisher TreasureLine. It is also available at Amazon and on Kindle. Anyone interested in an autographed copy of the book can order one from my website: www.meaganfrank.com
Tell us 5 things about you or your book that others may not know.
· I played division I soccer and division III basketball in college.
· Since we got married, we have moved 8 times and renovated four of the houses we have owned.
· I coached a varsity women’s college soccer team for five years.
· I am from an addiction-broken home and 65% of the marriages for my parents, my aunts and uncles and my siblings have ended in divorce.
· I have climbed three 14,000-foot mountains. One of the mountains was Pike’s Peak, when I ran in a half-marathon called the Ascent.
My full and legal name is Meagan McGuire Frank. I cling to the McGuire part of my name because I am proud of my half-Irish identity. My blue eyes, brown curls and freckled face would make you think I am entirely Irish… that, and my passionate emotions.
Yes, I admit it. I have fierce opinions and a prominent competitive edge. (ask my mom and three siblings) I sing loudly, I care deeply, I cry often, I adore laughing, and I LOVE to tell stories.
It’s true that some of my personality has been dampened by the arrival of our three children, but I will say, however, now that they are getting older (11, 8, and 5) I am finding the energy to re-invest in my authentic self.
My husband and I have been together for 17 years, married 13 of them. We have spent a large portion of our lives on soccer fields and in hockey rinks, as players, coaches, parents and fans.
My husband and I are both Colorado College graduates and we run our lives in a similar plan of study. CC offers a unique learning experience where the students take one class at a time with a block break before the next class. Our real-life block plan looks like this: Summers in Colorado where my husband runs the Colorado Renaissance Festival. Fall block is spent separated. My husband is in Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh show and I am back in Minnesota with our children. Winter, we hunker down for the Minnesota winter when our kids and my husband can spend countless hours on rinks of ice, both inside and out. My husband coaches a college hockey team, and I find what joy I can in cross-country skiing, carpooling and winter beauty. The spring is our block break…the transition back to Colorado and from frozen to thawed. Through all of our running, I have always made time to write.
I celebrate the seasons of our life, and I am invested in letting the constant change positively shape me.
What? What did you write – tell us about your book.
My first book is called Choosing to Grow: Through Marriage. It is not my first published piece (I was a newspaper reporter for a while and I have a couple freelance magazine articles too). It is a creative, non-fiction memoir about the journey I took to mend and eventually build my marriage to be the blessing it is supposed to be.
I collected 150 questionnaires, interviewed 70 women and read 25 titles as I researched for the tools I needed to improve our marriage. I talked with women who had been married over 60 years, and women who had been married two months. I grew with every insight and my story started to weave itself in and out of the stories of everyone else. Putting my marriage into the context of society, was what I needed to do in order to see some of the weaker parts of our own relationship. I had to have a context in which to fully analyze my own issues, so I set out to find it.
When? – Two options:
-When did you first realize you wanted to be an author?
I knew I would have to write starting when I was seven years old. As soon as I could put complete sentences down on the striped-page of my Dear Annie diary, I knew that writing was what I was meant to do. I never got frantic about how I would become an author, because I just knew that no matter if anyone ever read what I had to write, I had to write it nonetheless. I am just so grateful the opportunities started to match my desires.
-When did the idea for your book hit you?
Choosing to Grow absolutely hit me in the middle of the night as I prayed my way through darkness and depression. This book was the answer to my prayer. Not just because I could work toward an authored book, but because I was moved, in no uncertain terms, to pursue this entire project.
Why? Why should we choose to read your book? What’s in it for us? What are we going to get out of it?
I tell people all the time that even if no one reads this book, I will not regret the eight years I spent in its creation. It changed my life…it saved our marriage.
True, this is my story, and if you don’t know me, you will hardly care I’ve written it down. But this book is also the story of the 150 questionnaire responders, the 70 women I interviewed and the experts I read. It is their story too. All of those stories offer readers a place to engage, a moment of aha, a second of inspiration.
Readers will get out of it, what they are willing to see. There is a level of honesty and vulnerability necessary to make this book poignant for any given reader, but with appropriate willingness, there is a lot to gain from the wisdom I recorded. I simply reported the wisdom, and readers who may not want to go through the difficulties I endured, may find respite in these pages.
Where? Where can someone who is interested get a copy of your book?
My book is available in a number of places. You can buy directly from the publisher TreasureLine. It is also available at Amazon and on Kindle. Anyone interested in an autographed copy of the book can order one from my website: www.meaganfrank.com
Tell us 5 things about you or your book that others may not know.
· I played division I soccer and division III basketball in college.
· Since we got married, we have moved 8 times and renovated four of the houses we have owned.
· I coached a varsity women’s college soccer team for five years.
· I am from an addiction-broken home and 65% of the marriages for my parents, my aunts and uncles and my siblings have ended in divorce.
· I have climbed three 14,000-foot mountains. One of the mountains was Pike’s Peak, when I ran in a half-marathon called the Ascent.