Forty-Five Years, and Counting

Author and humourist Dave Meurer has said that a great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences. Clearly, Dave was writing about Karen and me.

Now, let’s get this straight: in our case, “imperfect couple” refers mostly to the male side of this relationship. Karen has been patient, kind, sweet and thoughtful, and the perfect mother to our four children. She’s a pretty amazing grandmother, too. It’s the male side of this couple which has supplied most of the imperfections.

August 26, 1972 saw a double wedding of two sisters at Winchester United Church. There were a few dicey moments as the anxious minister made sure he had it straight that it was Malcolm marrying Linda, and Norm marrying Karen. But it went off without a glitch, and I’m happy to say that both couples are celebrating forty-five years.

And neither couple has been without their share of trials. For reasons I won’t share here, I will say that Mac and Linda are the bravest people I know– they are heroes. As for Karen and me, it would be lovely and romantic to say that we’ve spent forty-five years walking on rose petals and staring into each other’s eyes, but that wouldn’t be the truth.

But the reason that two clueless kids survived forty-five years of marital partnership is that we communicated with each other, honestly and openly, and we showed each other respect. Over the years we have discovered that we are dramatically different on just about every point you can imagine, but we have learned that’s a pretty darned good thing. Her hills have evened out my valleys, my few strengths have covered for her few weaknesses, and our mutual trust has glued us together through some pretty dark times.

Have we had our crises? You’d better believe it. Have we nearly crashed it? Yes, several times. More than once we cried together in the darkness because we didn’t know how we could go on together, but we didn’t know how we could go on apart. Ultimately, the honesty and the respect we had shown each other over the years pulled us through. “We” triumphed over “me”.

We talk. We don’t always agree, sometimes we are poles apart, but we always talk. And more important, we listen. We share the secrets of our souls, we share our vulnerabilities, we share our hopes and our dreams. And then we hold each other up.

There’s no magic to a long and good marriage. Just hard work and communication. But take it from me, there is no better return on investment anywhere, anytime.

My blogs (http://www.purposeful.ca/blog)