When people learn that my wife and I will soon be celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary, they always want to know the secret to a long-lasting marriage. I tell them what I know: marry well and work hard at your relationship.
I married well: I met my wife when we were in college. It wasn’t love at first sight; we were friends first. We had a lot in common: both of us worked on the school paper and we were active in student government. One day, after a campus demonstration against the Vietnam war, I looked at her holding up her peace-symbol sign and realized that this was a woman I could spend my life with. So I asked her out on an official date. And the rest is history…
Like all marriages, ours has had its share of challenges. But these are normal life events. Neither of us expected married life to be a fairytale, so that’s my first piece of advice. Be realistic and don’t throw in the towel the first time your relationship hits a rough patch. Work through it. You’ll see that figuring out the hard stuff together is part of growing as a couple. We didn’t always have the best communication skills in the early days of our marriage, that’s for sure. One of the most helpful things we did early on was meet with a marriage counselor to help us learn the best way to “work” on the hard stuff together. The counselor really helped me and my wife find gentle and sensible ways to manage conflict.
Another thing I tell people is this: Accept your partner for who they are. A big mistake, and one that leads to marital resentment, is not accepting the person your spouse is, right now at this moment. Since my wife and I started out as friends, I had a pretty good picture of who she was outside of the relationship. And I loved most everything about her (which is I why I fell in love with her). She had her quirks and we had different opinions on some things—small things—but I never went into the relationship with the idea that I was going to change her. I always respected her as an individual person, and appreciated our differences.
I also think it is essential to marry someone who is like you. I know people who think “opposites attract” or “it doesn’t matter that my partner’s background is completely different from mine.” A lot of those people ended up divorced, just saying that they grew apart. But that happened because they weren’t that close to begin with! I knew from our time in college that my wife and I shared the same core values: we had the same view about money, work, and our connection to the community. We spent a lot of time demonstrating against the war together, so we knew we were on the same wavelength politically. So here’s something I tell people who ask how we’ve stayed together for over forty years: The more your views on work, money, education, community involvement, and family align, the better your chances are for a long and fulfilling marriage.
I give my wife at least one compliment a day. It might just be “you look so pretty with your hair like that” or “you are one fine cook!” Or I just tell her that I am grateful she puts up with me! I see a lot of couples who ignore each other and I never wanted to end up like that, so it’s important for me to let my wife know that I love her and would be lost without her.
I’m sure, part of why we have been married almost 45 years is that we keep active together. We don’t view the weekend as a time to slip into sweatpants and binge watch Netflix. We love to hike, do road trips, and explore new places together. Every weekend finds us out and about.
When I got married, my dad gave me this tip: Never go to bed angry. My wife and I made a pact to always talk things out, even if it keeps us up until 2 am. I can think of nothing sadder than having to share a bed with someone who is angry.
I think one of the key reasons behind our long lasting marriage is we are both physical people. We love to hug, kiss, and give each other back rubs. We worked hard to keep that spark alive, trying new things and being open to adjusting with age. Both of us enjoy the connection that physical intimacy provides.
One of the most important things I learned from being married for over forty years is this: Marry someone you not only love, but someone whom you truly like. I know some guys who married women for their beauty, but really didn’t know the kind of person the lady was underneath all that. Sometimes that woman didn’t turn out to be someone they really liked. And they ended up divorced. But for me, since I was friends first with my wife, I already knew I liked her before I knew I loved her. I would’ve been friends with my wife even if she weren’t my spouse. I’m glad we didn’t stay just friends, though. Think of all the love and passion we would’ve missed!
Photo Credit
Photo is pixabay public domain
Guest Author Bio
Rachel Pace
Rachel Pace is a relationship expert with years of experience in training and helping couples. She has helped countless individuals and organizations around the world, offering effective and efficient solutions for healthy and successful relationships. Her mission is to provide inspiration, support and empowerment to everyone on their journey to a great marriage. She is a featured writer for Marriage.com, a reliable resource to support healthy happy marriages. Owing to her in-depth understanding of relationships and their complexities, she is skilled at writing from both male and female perspectives and this article is based on the advice shared with her by a happy husband in a long and successful marriage.
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