We watched "The Princess Bride" the other night. I had watched it with Fearless Maria a number of years ago but she's now old enough to get the humor beyond the plot line. Mrs. D had never seen the movie before.
It's a very funny movie, of course, and one of the funniest parts is the wedding scene, in which the British comedian Peter Cook (Dudley Moore's old partner, by the way) plays "The Impressive Clergyman" and goes on to extol the virtues of marriage in a way that is almost incomprehensible.
I was thinking about this because yesterday happened to be my wedding anniversary. Mrs. D and I were married 20 years ago, so it was a fairly big milestone. I posted a wedding picture on Facebook and among the congratulations were a few observations about how tough it is to stay married for 20 years.
I'm of two minds about that. As it happens, many of our closest friends were also married in that same time frame. If I remember correctly, Mrs. D and I attended 8 other weddings in the period between the end of 1989 and the end of 1993. As of today, every single one of these marriages endures. Statistically, that's unusual, since we always hear that half of all marriages end in divorce. But it's not surprising to me, because I know that in every instance, our friends chose wisely.
There's never been a lack of advice to the lovelorn and I have no interest in being Dear Abby, but when I consider what we've done, and what our friends have done, I think we can see some common trends.
In most cases, these marriages were between people who were in their mid- to late twenties at the time. While we all know people who were high school sweethearts and made it work, in most cases you aren't really ready to make a lifelong commitment before the age of 25 or so. That made a big difference.
Marriage is simple, but it's not easy. You have to work at it. Mrs. D and I are fortunate in that we tend to see the world in the same way and that makes things easier, but you even where you disagree, you have to have your spouse's back, especially when the kids are involved.
I suspect a lot of people marry because they think that being with someone else will make them happy. Making someone else happy is too much work for your prospective spouse. You can be happy together, as the the old song goes, but your happiness is your own responsibility. Maturity is as much about managing your own expectations as anything else.
You can do things that will make your spouse happy, but each individual act has a statute of limitations. And that is where the work of marriage comes in. You can't pretend that a previous kindness is sufficient to make up for selfish behavior in the present, or that a previous slip can't be rectified. You get a chance to do the right things every day. You won't always do the right things, but your spouse should understand that if you've established that you are behaving in good faith.
Many things have happened over the last 20 years, but one thing has remained constant -- I can trust that my wife will have my back. And she knows that I have hers. Does that mean happily ever after? Not necessarily, but it gives us a good chance of it, as long as we stay true to ourselves and to each other. I'm eagerly awaiting the next 20 years and whatever comes after that. We might even have a dream or two fulfilled along the way.
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