Slightly over fifty-one years ago I was standing stiffly at a church altar in a small Southern Baptist church in Waco, Texas. I was resplendent in my $29.00 black H.I.S. suit adorned by a drooping white corsage. Yes, of course, my beautiful bride-to-be was there as well. We were there together at the departure point for a marital journey of unknown character and duration. My pulse rate was in in the red zone, and the preacher might as well have been speaking in tongues. Presumably, I did repeat after him the marriage vows and did not drop the cheap wedding band that we had bought on layaway at Nathan’s Jewelers in San Angelo. Thus our marriage was consummated. Well, not consummated, but you know what I mean.
I cannot, for the life of me, remember the vows that we subscribed to that day, but I presume they ran something like this: “I, Gary, take you Sandra, to be my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.” Sound familiar. It should, for this is the core of the vows that most of us take at the point of conjoining our life with that of our spouse. The words are derivative of those of the ancient Sarum Rite of medieval England, and form the basis of most marriages conducted in the Christian tradition. Not surprisingly, most other religious sects have similar formulations for hooking a man and a woman together, and all of them allude to marriage being forever. Now, in the fullness of time, and with the perfect clarity of hindsight, I can say for sure I was not focused particularly on the “…all the days of of my life” part of the vows. I’m pretty sure though that, even then, I thought of marriage as a permanent condition, I just didn’t think specifically about the forever part, and yet…here we are over half a century and more than half a lifetime still together. In fact, I’m about to the point where I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t married.
It’s well known by all who care to know that long term relationships of any kind are really difficult to sustain, and a long term relationship between a man and a woman in the form of a marriage only last fifty years or more about five percent of the time. Yeah, I know. To stay married that long you have to live that long and not every one does, but I’m referring to those like S. and I, that in the face of all odds, tough it out for the long haul. In mathematical, as well as human terms, long term relationships evoke entropy. They just go stale. Often resulting in divorce, separation, or, at the minimum, long term unhappiness. Not so for S. and I. Let me tell you why.
First of all, she’s a pretty keen girl, and has always been very easy on the eye…so to speak, but the real story of how it all started is the subject of some dispute. There is my version, there is S’s version and then there is the truth somewhere in between. Suffice it to say, that I saw her and was smitten. It took her graduation from college (a year before me), an ill advised boys trip to Mardi Gras, and considerable groveling on my part to repair the damage, before I acceded to her demand to put up or ship out. We married ninety days later.
Those who know us both would say that there are not two more unlikely people to go the distance. And ostensibly, they are right. We are very, very different in many easily observable ways. To name but a few of these differences:
1. She has never yet put the top on a tube of toothpaste, while I screw the top on with my left hand while still brushing with the right.
2. Her desk drawer is likely to have five year old lip stick blotted receipts from the grocery, while mine contains paper clips organized by size and ball point pens by color.
3. She always goes for the heart of the watermelon while I like to organize my slice into bite sized chunks. In fact, this difference led to our first real argument with raised voices.
4. She will give any one with their hand out more than they would ever expect, while I want to see a plan and comittment for behavior change before I give a dollar.
5. She is intuitive in the extreme, and I always want to see proof first.
I could go on with many other proofs, but you get the idea. On the other hand, we share many fundamental values and beliefs about how one should go about living one’s life. These shared values have gotten us over a lot of hurdles. I wrote once in a bio that S. was my moral compass. She always has a clear view of true north and is never reluctant to point it out to me as well.
As is my norm, I have done some research into my subject, and I must say that what I found squares with my own experience. Not only will I give you the benefit of the wisdom of the ages and the internet on the nature of long term relationships, I will add some secret sauce based on the trial and error of fifty-one years of marital bliss. If you don’t mind I”m going to skip all of the standard bromides. You know…don’t try to change your spouse, don’t go to bed mad, etc. Everyone knows that stuff and everyone ignores it. What I’m talking about is the really, really important rules of the road if you want a successful long term relationship. Admittedly, these may sound as if they are written from the male point of view, but ignore the bias and focus on the central point.
- Avoid lying. Yes, I know this is really hard for they male of the species. My darling wife, S. could tell my lies from the other room I asked her once how she did it, but I didn’t get a clear answer. Something about how my throat throbbed or my eyes squinted when telling a whopper.
- Keep separate checking accounts. S. and invented this rule when we didn’t have any money; thus, we never argued about it.
- Separate bathrooms are essential. No, it’s not what you think. It’s that every human deserves to do some personal things with the benefit of absolute privacy. I know that two bathrooms may not be easily affordable in the early years of a relationship, but that’s when it may be the most important. If you can’t always afford two separate physical spaces, at least have designated times of usage.
- Don’s use the same closet. This is closely related to three above but is equally important. A footnote here. If you’re a guy, your’e always going to get the raw end of the deal size-wise. You’re wife’s closet space will always be larger. Do not whine.
- If you come home a little late after one too many you-know-whats, stand as far away from your spouse as possible and immediately beg forgiveness. Throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Do not try to make up an excuse. The standing far away thing never worked with S. She could smell a weak beer on my breath from forty yards and a martini through a brick wall.
- Develop a technique to allow your wife to win every argument while you maintain a modicum of self-respect. My own system was based on the principle that she will aways think she’s right regardless of the facts or the rationality of your argument. So just go with the flow. Use my “Five Words to Marital Bliss”. They are, “yes dear, perhaps you’re right”. Does a contraction count as one or two words? There are those that would have you omit the “perhaps”, but I disagree. I do, from time to time, mumble a bit though. Ogden Nash may said it best, “To keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it. Whenever you’re right, shut up.”
- Never, ever, talk about sex. It’s not a topic that lends itself to rational discourse. The best you can ever say, on the subject is, “gee, I didn’t know that”. She will sometimes try to do an end run by suggesting that you talk about “feelings”. Avoid this as well. I promise you if you fall into the trap, it will not end well.
- When asked, “how do I look?” or any variation of that question, do not, I repeat, do not, use the words “fine or great” in your response. In fact, I’ve never found a suitable response to any of these questions. My advice is to start coughing and say that something is stuck in your throat. Leave the room immediately.
Of course, there is more than a bit of tongue-in-cheek in the above, but those of you who, like me, are mid-relationship know that there is more than a bit of truth as well. As I think about the relationship that S. and I are now still enjoying, fifty years after our time at the altar, I can best graphically characterize it as a sine curve. No sharp spikes or dips. It’s a gradual flowing and ebbing as events of our life together unfolds over the decades. But as twitterites might say, it’s trending positive.
As for the vows, I suspect what we all would have said, had we had the chance to choose is very particularized. I’ve heard numerous renditions of religious vows, and I have only a negative reaction to those which seem to require a complete sublimation of one to the other. That never works for long. But hey, it is after all a personal choice. I think in retrospect I would prefer something along the following lines:
“I take you, darling S, as my wife with all your faults and your strengths, as I offer myself to you with my own faults and strength. I will help you when you need help and turn to you when I need help. I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life.”
That’s pretty much how it has worked out for S. and I.
