My wife and I just celebrated our 40th anniversary.
It is really strange because in the past, couples who celebrated their 40th anniversary were always old people. My wife and I are still spring chickens, which is not unusual for our peer group. Most of the people we know insist that they are young whippersnappers who just happen to go to bed at nine o'clock.
Anyway, when we married, Ronald Reagan was President. Donald Trump was still married to his first wife, I think.
Televisions were big and heavy. Our first "big" purchase as a couple was a VCR. Somehow, we managed to hook it up without coming to blows.
We lived in an apartment complex. The complex is still there.
I've been thinking about marriage lately and how some make it to forty years and some don't.
One guy I enjoy reading is James Lileks, formerly of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Lileks is exactly one year older than me and was the Lewis Grizzard/Dave Barry of Minneapolis. Great writer. Posts a five-day week blog called "The Bleat".
Well, Lileks, to be blunt, isn't quite as woke (and I know that makes me sound like the guy at the loading dock who only watches FOX News) as people who want to control public discourse in Minneapolis expect. He wrote a joke (a joke!) in a humor column (the nerve!) and had his column yanked away. He was placed on the fast-paced Twin Cities Architecture beat. He eventually took a buyout.
He is getting a divorce from his wife. They were married a year or two after us. They share a grown daughter. He writes about the breakup in "The Bleat". Some of it is heartbreaking.
There's a lot of speculation, in the comments section of the blog, but really, there's no way to know. Just two people who are going their own way.
Roger Miller had an old country song that said it best regarding husbands and wives. "Some can and some can't."
My secret? I talk to my wife, and if she doesn't want to do something, we don't do it. It is as simple as that. If she wants to do something and I don't, well, we do it anyway. I have no strong opinion about a lot of things, like movies, where to eat, and whether we need to go to the grocery store.
Just decide which hill you want to die on. For example, if my wife wanted to rob a bank, I would argue with her.
Secondly, I would advise all couples to decide who is going to handle the finances. Make a budget. Try to keep it. My mother told me that marriages either fail in the bedroom or the bank book. That's pretty much true.
One thing I would caution young people on: everybody wants the Instagram pictures and all that. That's great, but marriage is not just the wedding. A marriage is something you have to work at. That means talking and listening. It means giving and taking.
It also helps if you marry a wonderful person, as I did.
