“A happy marriage is built on love, trust, and the ability to pretend you didn’t hear that last comment.”
A quip from an esteemed Indian author* can lighten the mood when considering the challenging union called married life.
The training process factors into much of the arenas of life.
Once our “I dos” and “I wills” were offered and the rings assigned their respective homes on appropriate fingers, my eighteen-year-old bride and I were off to the church fellowship hall.
It was in this warm, festive environment that I gained my first appreciation for smiles in their affects on facial muscles. From the nonstop smiling. . . toward photographer and camera – toward well-wishers – toward happy gift-givers as we opened yet another brightly-wrapped present. Hours passed before my face returned to its natural, “unfrozen” posture.
Good and Long marriages are characterized by just that. Long. Ann and I would learn that we had embarked upon a lengthy journey marked by pleasure and pain, conflict and harmony.
Long celebrations –long excursions (Montana, Texas, Africa, etc.) – long conversations (some marked with tension). One fellow presumably confided, “Me and my lady, we have never argued; we have, however, had some loud discussions”.
Days and weeks and years of learning. Whether married or single, a person discovers that life itself becomes it own trainer.
As a grateful spouse in these sunset years, I count myself still a novice in becoming the “ideal groom” to the bride from my youth. God has honed and formed and grown us both through our years together – all the way up till now – training wheels yet in place.
©2025 Jerry Lout * Ruskin Bond
What a blessing that you and Anne have survived ‘long’ and ‘strong.’