Advice on how to enjoy and/or survive 50 years of marriage

Spectrum
Friday, February 4, 2005
Maturity
Terri Andersen
Senior Moments
Advice on how to enjoy and/or survive 50 years of marriage
When someone lives to the ripe old age of 100, everyone wants to know what contributed to his or her longevity. Likewise, when a couple celebrates 50 years of marriage, they're often asked what contributed to the longevity of their marriage. As someone who just recently celebrated a golden anniversary, I feel I'm qualified to answer that second question. Mind you, this piece will be from my viewpoint, since I'm the talkative one in the family. Husband Herb is a nice guy but usually not one to put his views into words. (What? You think to spend 50 years together a couple has to have the same viewpoint on everything? Get real! Show me two people who think exactly alike, who agree on everything and never have a difference of opinion.) The first thing a couple has to learn when they get married is how to live with someone who's practically their exact opposite. (That realization is usually discovered pretty soon after the honeymoon.) - Ever notice how there's one partner who's a spender and the other decidedly “frugal,” to put it kindly, or one is a neatnik and the other is more of a “free spirit” who thinks nothing of leaving a wet towel on the bathroom floor or, worse yet, on the freshly made bed. - When Herb and I had a difference of opinion one time, I was told not to “have a cow" about it. So I learned to have a calf instead of a cow by deciding and choosing what was really important to me and letting go of things of lesser consequence. Here's what I came up with:
C: for Compromise. Ideally, marriage is a partnership with someone you love, so don't always insist on having everything your way. Both partners should have a say about things that matter to them, and with sincere consideration for each other a solution will be possible. (My mother's advice to us when we were getting married was short and sweet: All she said was “Be kind to each other.”)
 A: for Acceptance of your partner as he or she is and not how you think he or she should be. If someone is the quiet type, don't expect compliments and praises over everything you do. Do what has to be done because it's the right thing to do and you know that. (Pat yourself on the back if you have to be praised.)
 L: for Laughter. Both partners having a compatible sense of humor has been one of the biggest factors in the enjoyment of our marriage. Herb is great with puns, and while some people might groan at them, I see them as creative and funny. It amazes us that we find so much to laugh about, and Herb often tells people that I still laugh at his jokes after all these years, like he can't get over it.
F: for Forgiveness, a very important factor in keeping a marriage together. Living together for 50 years is bound to include some occasions where one's feelings get hurt, sometimes more so than other times. It may take a few hours or a even few days to get over it, but without forgiveness a marriage has little chance of surviving as a happy relationship. (It does help, too, when the offender says, “I’m sorry,” contrary to the line in the “Love Story” movie: “Love means never having to say you're sorry.") I have to say that Herb and I consider ourselves blessed to have found each other all those years ago and to have raised our five children together. We've had our ups and downs over the years (even a red hot rage now and then), but the ups have outweighed the downs, and we're so glad we were able to stay together through it all. What's surprises me when I mention “downs” is that neither of us even remembers what they were about. (Sometimes I wonder if a lot of today's divorces could have been averted if couples gave themselves more time to get over what they considered irreconcilable.) As a married senior citizen, you don't dare say anything even remotely critical of your spouse because so many people, women especially, have lost their partners by this stage of their lives, and the first thing they'll say is, “Be glad you still have each other. I'd do anything to have my husband back again." If nothing else, it makes us realize how bleak our life could be without each other. As for our children, they're proud of the fact that their parents stayed married for 50 years and showed it by giving us the gift of a Caribbean cruise for our anniversary (a suite on the ship and a chauffeur to take us from the plane to the ship, mind you). They went all out for us, and we had a wonderful time. One of the highlights was a special dinner in the ship's elite French restaurant on the actual night of the anniversary, with a special cake and serenade by the waiters, plus a place on the stage when the ship had a Newlywed/Not So Newlywed game, and  we were the ones married the longest. It was hilarious, and we won a bottle of champagne. After that we were getting congratulated by everyone on the ship who saw us on stage that night. As a bonus, our daughter and son-in-law had arranged for their children's godmother and her friend, who live near New Orleans, to meet us at the ship when it docked there and give us a tour of the French Quarter before taking us to the airport. We loved it, and it was the icing on the cake for me. I'd say the best part of the trip for us was that we could still enjoy each other's company and have fun together like we did in our younger years.
Terri Andersen is a resident of New Milford.

Happiness comes from complaining less and being positive more often

Spectrum
Maturity
Terri Andersen
Senior Moments
 Friday, December 3, 2004
Happiness comes from complaining less and being positive more often
In my last column, I aired a lot of grievances the average person has with today's world. I wrote about how technology sometimes makes things more unpleasant than we would like them to be (like pre-recorded telephone messages, advertisements on TV and in the mail, unsolicited credit card applications and blank checks). But would it make us happy to do away with today's telephones, televisions or computers? I doubt it. Unfortunately, so much of what irritates us is something that benefits the business or organization that originated the practice, so it's probably here to stay. Since we can't go back in time, we might as well do what we can to enjoy what's good in the here and now. (The Serenity Prayer might help: “God, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.") It's often been said, if you want to be happy, do what it takes to make other people happy. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad." Scholars say the universe gives back to us what we give to the universe. If we're generous and grateful people, we'll be rewarded with more to be grateful for. If we live a mean or selfish life, peace and happiness will elude us. There may be times when the good we do and giving our best to the world might not be appreciated, but we shouldn't let that bother us. Mother Teresa advocated that we do good and give our best to the world anyway. Another key to happiness is to appreciate what we have and not dwell on what we don't have. Remember the song "Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative"? That pretty much says it all. Often a person with a few problems might be tempted to ask, “What do I have to be thankful for? My bills are piling up, I hate my job, nobody understands me,” or something to that effect. The trouble is, a lot of people see only what's wrong and don't take the time to see all that's right in their world or put in the effort it takes to get what they want. Every day we have things to be thankful for — the beauty of nature that surrounds us, the abundance of foods available to us, family, friends, the wondrous body we live in — and so much more. What's the one thing anyone with a broken arm or leg would want more than anything else? Healing of that arm or leg, right? Yet if we have nothing broken, we take for granted all of our parts that are working fine. For anyone who doesn't think that's such a big deal, consider Christopher Reeve and what he had to go through after his paralyzing accident. In spite of his acknowledging that the mind and spirit transcend the body, in a Reader's Digest interview he admitted that sometimes it bothered him when people took their ability to move for granted. Sadly, Christopher didn't live to see a cure for spinal injuries, but he did as much as he could to champion that cause, which may very well help future victims. How we think also has a lot to do with happiness. As so many people have said, thoughts become things. Isn't it true that anything created by man first started with a thought? A book I’m reading, “There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem" by Wayne Dyer, says many people spend all their energy thinking about what they lack, or what they fear, not realizing that our thoughts have a big influence on what happens in our lives. According to Dr. Dyer, if we say we can't be happy unless we have this or that, we're not allowing happiness to come into our lives, and it will elude us as long as we think that way. The same goes for holding a grudge and harboring hate or resentment, which does more internal harm to the hater than to the one being hated. When we learn to forgive, we do ourselves a favor, Dr. Dyer says. He also says if we pursue a goal and believe we can achieve it, we put ourselves in a frame of mind which brings good vibrations into our field of energy. I think even something as simple as a smile can make a change in our attitude. If you're feeling down in the dumps, put a smile on your face, just for the fun of it, and it's surprising how uplifted that can make you feel. (Of course, if you walk around with a smile on your face all the time, people will wonder what you've just done or what you're thinking about, but so what? Keep them guessing.) Another quote attributed to Lincoln is: “A man can be as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” What we all have to remember is that our most important power is the power of choice. We can choose the negative, which supplies us with a lower energy field, or the positive, which supplies us with a higher energy field. We can choose peace instead of despair, forgiveness instead of holding a grudge, and to give instead of take. See the best in people instead of the worst. Everyone has ups and downs in their life, but it seems to me our happiness or unhappiness depends on which we choose to focus on, the ups or the downs.
Terri Andersen is a resident of New Milford.