Well, we made it!! The big five-O \u2014 If you were at this space last year at this time, you know that I was bemoaning the fact that we\u2019d been married for 49 years and that, according to the experts, wasn\u2019t anything special\u2026. it just counted as another year of being married. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You all know that I try to provide factual information here \u2014 of course sometime i resort to \u201calternate facts,\u201d but this is real data, provided by the Census Bureau. Fifty-five percent of currently married couples have been married for at least 15 years, and thirty-five percent have reached their 15th anniversary. But \u2014 only six<\/em> percent have made it to their 50th wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that puts us in a pretty select group. Our lives have changed in so many ways over the past 50 years\u2026. I\u2019ve mentioned before, that we\u2019re now the elders of the family. When we got married, there were no iPhones and personal computers didn\u2019t exist and if they had, no one would have had any idea what to do with them. Nine-eleven was just the eleventh day of September, mass shootings hadn\u2019t yet become popular. And of course, who would have imagined that we\u2019d have to live through a pandemic to get to 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A couple of people have said to me, \u201cgee, that\u2019s a long time \u2014 how\u2019d you do it?\u201d I never thought about it being particularly difficult \u2014 we\u2019ve been lucky, we\u2019ve had many, many more good times than bad times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I gave the same advice to both Kelly and David when they got married. I told them that the development of a good marriage isn\u2019t a natural process \u2014 it\u2019s an achievement. So I guess being married for 50 years is an achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also told both kids that the key to a good marriage was to love each other for what they are, not what you want them to be. Don\u2019t enter marriage thinking someone will change, or that you can change someone. Over the years, there are two or three things I\u2019d like to change about Claire, and there is something more than 16,000 things she\u2019d like to change about me. But I didn\u2019t and she didn\u2019t. Well, we made it!! The big five-O \u2014 If you were at this space last year at this time, you know that I was bemoaning the fact that we\u2019d been married for 49 years and that, according to the experts, … Continue reading
That enabled two un-perfect people to put together pretty close to a perfect marriage.\u00a0
I propose a toast to the best 50 years of my life!!
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"