Found a wonderful plaque today that read: “A good marriage must be created. In marriage the little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say I love you at the end of each day. It is never going to bed angry. It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other a safe place to grow. It is not only marrying the right person, it is BEING the right partner.”
Of all these traits the last is the most important. How many of you discovered after years of marriage that you married the right person? How many of you wondered if you found the right person because you were the right partner?
I went with a friend to hear a speaker talk about the perfect marriage. As it turned out, my friend was having trouble in hers and wanted tips to pull it back from the brink of divorce.
The speaker began with this statement, “You can make your husband the man you wanted to marry. You can change him and I will tell you how.”
Being a person whose words pop into her mind and out her mouth pretty much at the same time, I questioned her.
“Why not marry the man you want in the beginning? As the years pass, it is inevitable both of you will change. If you are paying attention you will know whether the changes will be to the good or to the bad.”
She was not amused at my comment and continued her speech without further interruption by my runaway mouth. As she wound up for the evening, another audience member deemed it necessary to ask, “How long have you been married?”
“Oh, I’m divorced,” said the moderator, “but always on the lookout for Mr. Right.”
Her methods failed with her first husband, yet she learned nothing from that failure. No one stayed to ask further questions.
I married a man because I liked him. I’m not even certain I really knew what love was at the time. I knew he had a great sense of humor. He was brilliant and could talk about any subject under the sun with knowledge. I knew from the two years we dated that he could change on his own and would change to please me without me hounding him.
I was not so fabulous as he, since I made our first year hell with jealousy if he so much as looked at another woman in passing. One day it came to a head when he went to the pool and I declined. Looking out our picture window, I saw him grab a woman’s ankle and pull her into the pool. She was a neighbor, a very sweet neighbor, who absolutely had no designs on my husband.
I locked the door; he took it off the hinges when he came back from the pool.
“Never lock me out of a place I’m paying for,” he said in steely tones. Then more calmly, he told me to wait while he changed clothes because we had a lot of talking to do.
Later he gave me a choice to either trust him because he truly loved me or get ready to leave. Somehow, I had the notion that jealousy proved love and never considered that trust was the cement that bound a couple together. In other words, I was not being the right partner. That day I changed more completely than anyone would ever have thought possible.
We had forty-three more years, wonderful years, where trusting each other was never a question; it was a fact. For that to happen I had to become the partner he needed as he had become the partner I needed and wanted.
As we move into our senior years, when sickness, lack of money, and the specter of death can make those marriage vows come to life, it is even more important that we are the partners our husbands and wives need.
Only when we remember those vows and keep them in our hearts will our golden years become treasures we will enjoy each day.