On the nature of 40-yr. marriages or Marriage is a bed of roses, thorns and all

1. Good gravy! We will have been married 40 years on August 17, 2008. First, I guess I should tell you a little about the courtship. I met Bill when I went to visit Chris Lunt, a friend from 4th grade forward, who had moved from Bay Village, OH, to Staunton, VA, in the 10th grade. I was devastated to lose my best friend, and my parents said I could fly down (a big deal in those days) to visit her in the summer. Well, the summer after 11th grade I came down with a nasty case of poison ivy and had to put off the trip until the summer after 12th grade. I mention the poison ivy because if I had gone that first year I wouldn't have met Bill because she didn't know him yet. So, chalk up the marriage to poison ivy. Bill was a friend of Chris's boyfriend, so we double dated that week. Bill loves to tell the story (do you know how many times I've had to listen to this in 40 years?) that he was paid to take me out. Anyway, he must have liked me because he invited me to Duke for their homecoming weekend. was even more amazing was that the parents (who with 4 kids weren't rich) shelled out the $$ again for another plane trip for their daughter from Ohio State into the land of cotton where old times there were not forgotten. One thing led to another, (I liked him because he was smart and he liked me because I was hot) and after a 2-1/2 year courtship, during which time we saw each other a total of 30 days (but, oh, the phone bills - no cell phone plans in those days), we were married. Bill, who had only been dabbling in Duke, knew he needed a kick in the pants and voluntarily joined the Army (during the Viet Nam War no less), went to OCS; I think he scored 141 on the Army's IQ test, and became a 2nd lieutenant. We were married in Mentor, Ohio, at Hope Ridge United Methodist Church with a reception following at a local restaurant (in the afternoon). My bridesmaids wore apricot. We pulled a small U-Haul filled with I don't know what (since our apt. would be furnished) behind Bill's new car, a 1968 beige Volkswagen beetle. It was practically bigger than the car. We had no money and stayed in some pretty seedy motels in places like Joplin, MO, on our way to Ft. Lawton, OK, where Bill was to be stationed in the Artillery. That's a whole 'nother post. So, about 40 years of marriage and how does one do that? I'm going to keep this simple from my perspective. I can think of a few major reasons (outside of staying madly in love for 40 yrs, which almost no one does, as like the tides, the love in marriages ebbs and flows: you are just more happy some months or years than others). Here they are: 1. You are not a changer; you are not a restless person and would just as soon stay put as go out into that whole dating scene again. In fact, you didn't much like it the first time and the thought of doing it a second time terrifies you. 2. You actually believed in the part of the ceremony about "in good times and bad" and "till death do us part" - not as the hippies wrote into their ceremonies "for as long as we both shall dig it." 3. You've read acticles about how married people live longer presumably because they are more content, not only emotionally, but certainly financially. Our marriage certainly falls into all 3 of those categories. Plus we tried to never go to bed angry and I always tried to communicate my feelings. Bill's an engineer and only communicated feelings when forced to make up one. Actor Alan Alda said the secret to his 50 yr. marriage was playing cards. "Spite and Malice - the card game, of course. We play it every day, and by the end of the game we're cursing and laughing." Whatever it takes . . . but mostly, commitment, communication, patience, acceptance, respect, and never stop laughing.