In Chapter 6 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "How Has Getting Married Change Your Life?" She notes how marriage weaves together two people into one and represents a lifetime commitment. She notes how the commitment to marriage stands above either she or her husband's individual desires and needs.
Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married. She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm. In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies. In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners. She graduated from Wake Forest University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: How has getting married changed your life?
Audrey Parker French: Well, it’s not my life anymore. My life is now me and my husband. It’s a completely – I mean to the point where I – I could’ve thought that I could know what this would be like and yet until I’ve gone through it I really didn’t know what this was. It’s literally a weaving together of 2 people into one. And it’s a commitment that lasts a lifetime. And we both took that commitment and still take that commitment very, very seriously. And it means that on a day-to-day basis, it’s – you know – it’s a commitment that’s higher than ourselves, the commitment to the relationship that’s higher than what I wanna do in the morning or what I wanna do in a day or what he wants to do in the morning or do in a day, it’s – we’ve made a commitment to value our relationship above either one of our individual in the moment kind of needs.
I have done that before in the commitment level that I had to the company that I helped start. I know how to put something ahead of your own desires and we all do it every day. We just have to make sure that what we put ahead of our own desires, what we’re committed to above anything else is something really pure and really important, and really good that fulfills us. And that’s what marriage is for me. It’s been – it’s also been – it’s been really fun to find the person that really is my mirror, my equal, my match, you know, he’s the right shoe, I’m the left shoe. We’re a matching pair.
And life didn’t really make sense to either of us, we’ve laughed about it how we’ve gone out with plenty of people over the last, you know, 10 or 15 years as we’ve been learning and growing. And thinking, “Well, wow, that was a really good date, that person got me 60% of the way or 50% of the way.” But we have never experienced really getting another individual on such a deep level and really feeling that sacred spiritual precious pure feeling, and I – it’s just been life changing, really life altering and beautiful.