Marriage Tips: 39 Years And Still Going Strong

By Venus Thomas

In April 2012, I will proudly celebrate my 39^th wedding anniversary!   To be married to someone for that long and still be happy, filled with joy, content, and still having fun is a true blessing.  I hear so much about how hard it is to find someone to love; someone you want to commit to have a relationship with; or someone you can just be happy with, that I thought it might be nice to share some of what I have learned that it takes, to be lucky enough to be blessed to spend 40 years with someone that you love, admire, respect and are best friends with.

The key is to find your best friend for life. There is a difference between being true friends and just being lovers.  You will realize this when you find someone that you genuinely like, want to be with, and can’t wait to talk to about all the small things that happen in your life, on any given day.  Life can be difficult but how wonderful it is to go through the ups and downs of life’s journey with someone “who’s got your back.”

When you do find that person, learn to compromise for the good of the relationship. Learn to listen without interrupting. Trust fully and open your heart to that person. I believe in the saying that “it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.”

When you do find someone that you love, don’t risk the entire relationship and that person’s trust by doing foolish things like having affairs or saying mean and hurtful things that might damage the future of the relationship.

In a relationship, it is good to have different opinions and different views about issues and like totally different types of activities.  Learn to respect the other person’s views and opinions.  If you disagree about certain issues, that’s okay too, just be respectful to the other person when you let them know that you don’t agree with their point of view, and agree to disagree about the matter.

Always concentrate on the goals of the relationship as a whole, and work on discovering and nurturing each other’s strengths. That’s what makes the entire relationship strong.  My husband and I have always depended on each other to handle the everyday tasks in our household that each of us do best.  Be honest and fair about taking on the day-to-day activities of your life, knowing that your future depends on the decisions you make and the actions that you take in the beginning.

I hear so many people fussing and fighting over things that we would never think were worthy of a fight.  Whenever you do fight, remember to fight fair and stick to the issue at hand, rather than bringing up the past or trying to win the argument at all costs.  You have to be a rational person to make any of this work, so first, be honest with yourself about who you are.

Use common sense and don’t compete with each other in the relationship,  and support each other’s dreams and goals.  If you keep your focus on the end game, being that “you are both in it to win it”, you can’t lose!

There is so much talk these days, about setting a “date night”, but I guess I came along in a different era, because we always made the time to be together and hang out at the movies and do other fun things, simply because we enjoy each other’s company.

We both agree that one of the main ingredients is humor, we both have a wicked sense of humor and laugh a lot.  Life throws a lot of curves that you will have to tackle and overcome, so having a sense of humor helps a great deal.  There will be good times and there will be bad times and you need to do what it takes when going through the bad times to strengthen your relationship and grow closer.

Make sure that your marriage is more important than your careers, your friends and relatives and even your children. Your relationship should be your top priority period.  The beauty of having a solid meaningful relationship comes from the building of it, which takes years, so understand that you will get out of the relationship what you put into it.

When your relationship deepens and becomes serious, before you decide to get married, make sure that you discuss and understand each other’s values, this is very critical part of the whole relationship.

Mind you, this is just the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot more to be said about building and sustaining a healthy, loving relationship.  But these are  some of the things that stand out in my mind, as having been important issues that we learned to manage during our marriage.  We feel that we made the right decisions for us because our love deepened as we grew and gained wisdom over the years.  Marriage is a work in progress and it grows richer in time if you are both truly committed to its success.