I recently watched an episode of The Good Doctor. The main character, Shaun Murphy, has autism and speaks honestly and without a filter. He posed a question to the surgical team. If humans lived for 1,000 years, should the marriage vows still mean “till death do us part?”

We struggle with a 50% divorce rate with an 80-year lifespan. My thought is there would be two significant groupings. In one group, members would be serial brides and grooms, and the other would be couples to the end. One is not right or wrong for me.

But we won’t be living for 1,000 years anytime soon, at least not in my future.

I’ve been married for over 40 years. I consider that a milestone and an accomplishment.

Over the years, I have matured, and with that gain of life experience and wisdom, I have fallen deeply in love. Yes, with my wife!

For our 25^th wedding anniversary, I bought us matching engraved wine glasses – well, not perfectly matching.  My wife had an extra line of etching to the phrase “25 years of marriage” with the added inscription “and 2 of them happy ones.” A line from Henny Youngman.

The salesman cautioned me. “You know you can’t return engraved items? “

My wife’s reaction was as I expected – a great hearty laugh. Phew!

So how have we grown more together over our short lifespans? First, my wife is the easiest person in the world to get along with, and hopefully, I am too. We don’t sweat the small stuff – and most of our lives are filled with the small stuff. We save the areas of conflict for things that really count. We have differences in what we each consider essential. Not everything is.

I laugh, looking back at our selection process for a living room lamp. We each had different reasons for wanting what we wanted, without being able to articulate that difference. We lived in semi-darkness for many months while the hunt went on. One day, we walked into yet another furniture store and saw a lonely lamp, on sale, off in the corner. We both liked it, and we bought it.

This isn’t an approach for the faint of heart. For us, it was not worth an argument nor a power play to get our way.

When we are apart, we appreciate the opportunity to have experiences that the other will never have, except vicariously through the telling.

Please give a bit of a think.

What are two things you could do differently to strengthen your relationships with two other people? One thing would be to start doing, and the other would be to stop doing.

I’m curious about your thoughts. Please leave your comment.

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

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