Fifty years of marriage

The Christmas Holidays are a time when Christmas newsletters arrive. Writing and sending them takes time - because I write one myself, I know. But for recipients, the may be among the best gifts of the season we receive. A particularly meaningful one was from a couple I have known for at least 30 years and with whom I collaborated intensively on one of my books, Making it Happen: A Positive Guide to the Future. Of all the couples I know, they may approach my ideal of what a marriage should be - respect, sharing, love and mutual support among authentic equals.

The celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary earlier in the year and included this lovely retrospective in their Christmas newsletter.

Celebrating fifty years together is to mark a thoughtful milestone. How many days, how many “up’s” and "downs,” how many smiles and how many tears, how much individuality cherished and shared, how much creativity and synergy that either of us alone could never have achieved. In our half-century journey together we have changed, each of us, and we have changed each other. [They reported that a former student had sent them a file of their year end letters since 1960 and they were reading them over, together. [ ,,,we are now remembering things we had forgotten and we rejoice in things that had been buried in the progressions of day-after-day through those years.

We are profoundly glad that we “hung in” to our relationship through the rough patches and that we now experience the difficulties of aging together, rather than alone.

Words to reflect on for two young couples I know, December AU graduates, who in post holiday weddings are about to embark on life journeys together.