Good grief! I’ve turned the pages in our calendar twice since Christmas, and here we are at Valentine’s Day. While I was in the hospital, one of the young nurses asked me how long Bill and I had been married. “Fifty-two lo-o-o-ng years! Actually, it’s been 52 wonderful years that have passed much too quickly.” “How have you managed to stay together so long?”
I really had to think about that. There are many answers, but I suppose that the most important reason is love. However, that is a very simplistic answer. As a song goes, true love is a many-splendored thing. Rev Carlson, the minister who married us recited Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Most people who’ve been married so long could give many reasons why they love their mates. Abiding love is the sum of many parts, and it’s the glue that holds a relationship together. However, affection is as important as love.
When you are with the same person year after year after year you share a tremendous depth of varied experiences — both happy and sad, funny and serious, depressing and uplifting. Your mate becomes woven into the very fabric of your life. You have the security of knowing that there is always one person you can absolutely count on. Bill is my best friend. We find ourselves uttering the same words at the same time and finishing each other’s sentences. However, no matter how well you know each other or how much you grow alike, there are still hidden places at the core of your beings and you still have individual quirks that your mate learns to put up with.
Most human beings aren’t saints. In fact, I always thought that many saints were probably rigid, self-righteous pains in the rear! We lesser mortals lose our tempers, have quarrels, act on impulse, behave stupidly and say things that we regret. It takes an unbreakable commitment and determination to hold a marriage together. To meld two personalities into a unit requires acceptance, compromise, patience, mutual respect and a sense of humor.
After thinking, I told the young nurse, “How you talk to each other is key.” Bill and I have never — not once — used smutty language when disagreeing with each other or questioned each other’s intellect or integrity by saying things such as, “You bleeping bleeper!” or “That’s so stupid” or “You liar!”
That may seem overly simple, but we are the words that we use. People say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never slay me.” Oh yes they will! Demeaning words and ugly language wound spirits, fester in the mind and may never be forgiven or forgotten. They indicate a lack of respect and charity for their target. They slay marriages, other relationships and friendships.
We have become a society of egocentric blabbermouths. I used to be appalled at what total strangers divulged to me. Now it’s even worse. There is no privacy on Facebook where people reveal details about the faults and conduct of their spouses or significant others that are shared with dozens or even hundreds of so-called “friends.” Did Bill and I ever quarrel? Indeed, we did, but we didn’t run blabbing to mama or our friends!
There is one word that is fatal to a marriage, and that’s the “D” word — “divorce.” If it is used lightly in the heat of an argument, a couple is on the slippery slope to disaster.
We could all profit from this description in the Old Testament’s Book of Corinthians that I wish I were better at following:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
wclarke@comcast.net