A Long-Term Marriage is a Blessing Every Day!

I thought I couldn’t remain married for more than three years. I first married at age 19, and for three years, all was good, even after we took custody of four children. But, one day, he announced that I needed to work, because he didn’t want to care for other people’s children any more. For the next three years, we were separated, as I worked in another state to provide for the children and him. But once he met his “soul mate,” I felt free to end the marriage and move on.

Through the years, I kept making mistakes in relationships, until I realized that when you grow up without witnessing a good marriage and the sacrifices that long-term relationships require, it is difficult to know how to act. I had to learn from people in long marriages what was required. The Carmichaels, whose boardinghouse I lived in when I worked in Atlanta, had been married nealy fifty years. I marveled at how they were affectionate with each other and the respect they shared. They were slow to blame and quick to apologize.

Although she had her own money from the boardinghouse, he still shared his pension with her, because he was from a generation that believed in men caring for their wives and homes. She allowed him to do so, never feeling he was controlling or rendering a statement on her value and worth as a woman. He relished her successes, such as when she was honored by the city for her philantrophy and work with women in prison. He never tried to steal her thunder; she never attempted to make him feel small.

Twenty-three years ago, I felt ready to be in the marriage, rather than needed to be for security purposes or to assuage my fears of being alone. I prayed for a husband, even though I had learned that I could be happy alone. God heard my plea and sent me a lovely man who had been my husband for 21 years. I prayed for a 25-year marriage type of man. I am hoping for until death do we part.

Every day is a blessing, and I thank God for him each day in my prayers, because I know I have a remarkable gift. I am proud that I did not allow the hurts of the past to deny me this wondrous joy. It is so easy to let the harms and pains of others to make us afraid to move forward, and we can miss so much if we let othrs have that kind of power in our lives.

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