Dear LPG,

Did you know that if you got married before the year of 1948 you will be part of a very select section of our society?  I have a friend who is quite a way past a particular 50^th milestone and tells me that she and her husband are aiming beyond the diamond years and onto the time when they will be able to say that they have been married for over seventy.  They met at school, married really early in life and both come from families who have a number of long livers, and this has a bearing on this ambition of theirs.  With the best part of 60 years of married life under her belt, she tells me that the secret is toleration and adds that no partner or marriage is perfect, but as long as each partner in the relationship tolerates the little peculiarities of the other, the marriage will last.

My friend tells me that when they first got married things were very different.  The war had not long finished and wives were still very much expected to agree to whatever their husband thought was right, but gradually things have changed.  After all these years she tolerates the fact that he still smokes and is a bit of a ‘stay at home’ type, and she knows that he must have some criticisms about her. She also mentioned that another important lesson is that partners must have the odd secret.

There are still things that they don’t agree on, and things that they have found out about each other over the years which each would prefer to change, but after the effect of young love and young children, they worked hard and spent a lot of their lives contributing to the marriage in quite separate ways.  Then retirement and the little ones leaving the nest gave them the opportunity to get to know each other again, and after more than twenty years of not having to work all day, they have an unwritten understanding that works. 

My friend also observed that perhaps the young people of today go into marriage a little too lightly and it is much easier to get out of these days too, and she also notes that people are much happier with the idea of having the children before tying the knot and making a home these days?  She feels that these are some of the contributing factors to so few getting to their seventieth wedding anniversary, but also notes that on the plus side, people live longer, but on the other hand they tend to get married later.

Anyone who has managed to get to their mid-eighties still married to their original spouse knows all this and I think that my friend’s comments make a lot of sense, even though I admit to having given marriage up a long time ago.  Perhaps our married friends are in a position to spell the realities out to the young people.

According to an article I found online they are aiming to become members of an extremely exclusive club that includes the Queen and Prince Philip and, not that many others.

KY, Ladywell.

LPG found some related information…

(►►►)