Fifty Years

Yesterday my parents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary...on their actual anniversary. We had a big party with family and friends traveling from all over the United States. It was a wonderful night.

As a gift to my parents, my brother and his wife had two actors perform a dialogue written especially for the occasion by a playwright. It was funny, insightful, and touching. Something they said really spoke to what I feel made my parents marriage last all these years and what I strive for in my own,

Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.

If you asked my parents what makes a good marriage, I think they would answer simply, commitment. Eleven years ago my dad had heart surgery. While we were all gathered in the waiting room my mom had his wedding ring in her hand. She said it was the first time he'd ever taken it off. In 40 years of marriage his wedding ring never left his finger.

Another line in last night's performance really sums up commitment,

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him...or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall back in again. A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

There are definitely times in a marriage when you don't like the other person very much. When you get through those, you find moments you are so filled with love you can't imagine feeling any other way.

Like when my daughter steals away into the kitchen late at night and my husband doesn't send her back to bed right away as I would...he sits with her, feeds her a little snack, and talks with her about baseball, the bible, or "Fiddler on the Roof". When, after a conversation with our son riding home in the car, he stays up and looks in a reference book for the answer to the question they've been discussing and leaves the book on the breakfast table awaiting our son in the morning. Or after a hectic couple of weeks, he knows that a little break on a Sunday afternoon is just what I need to regenerate, so he takes the kids golfing and makes dinner.

For me, it's not the big gestures that make me love my husband or make our marriage work. It's the small moments. The times when he probably doesn't even know I'm watching that I fall in love with him over and over again. It's those moments which, over time, accumulate to a make a marriage that lasts fifty years.