With each new passing of the calendar we’re reminded that we’re all getting older.
Our culture may prize youth and try to avoid aging, but I think that’s misguided. There’s great beauty in a love story that lasts decades. Growing old together is a wonderful goal.
This week we’ve been talking about new habits we can get into in our marriage that can help us to grow closer. And I thought today I’d try to give us some inspiration to do just that!
I read this story a while back (it’s been taken down now so I can’t link it):
This week, in the Boston Globe, I read the story of an elderly couple named Sol and Rita Rogers. They’ve been married 61 years. They’ve raised a family and lived a long and happy life together. A few years ago, that began to change. Rita developed Alzheimer’s. And she is slipping deeper and deeper into dementia.
Several weeks ago, she was taken to a health care center, where she now has to live. The first few days, she screamed and talked incoherently. She could barely form words with her mouth. Most tragically, she could no longer recognize her husband. She had no idea who he was. This was agony for him. He would go home from visiting her, trembling with grief, overwhelmed by sadness.
One morning, he went into her room, and saw her lying there and had an idea – an idea, he said, that could only have come from God. Sol climbed into his wife’s tiny twin bed, and put his arms around her. And he just held her. He hugged her. He whispered to her. That’s all. But something happened. As he put it, “I got into bed with her and loved her and it lifted my depression.” And Rita was transformed, too.
She responded to his touch. And she began to talk. He now does it every day.
Rita’s doctor says that her “old memory” recalls being in his arms, remembers how he used to hold her, and part of her is able to come back. Now Sol spends a couple of hours of every day, just holding Rita, telling her he loves her, and she tells him she loves him. Just as they have for 61 years.
Isn’t that beautiful? I really pray that I have decades ahead with my husband. I just love him to pieces, and I’d be lost without him.
[clickToTweet tweet=”‘The best love story isn’t Romeo and Juliet dying together; it’s Grandma and Grandpa growing old together.'” quote=”‘The best love story isn’t Romeo and Juliet dying together; it’s Grandma and Grandpa growing old together.'”]
But as much as we glorify this kind of romantic love, let’s remember that it’s not a fluke.
Isn’t that profound? How many couples expect to coast in their marriage on those amazing feelings they have when they walk down the aisle, only to find that they disappear? I think that if we could just make an effort to love, with action, even when the feelings aren’t there, we might find that the feelings follow. And pretty soon the person becomes indispensable, such an intricate part of our lives we can’t imagine it without them.
Here’s another quotation I love, this time from Anne Tyler, from her book A Patchwork Planet:
I knew couples who’d been married almost forever — forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy-two, in one case. They’d be tending each other’s illnesses, filling in each other’s faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter’s suicide, or the grandson’s drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the right person. Finally, you’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in a half century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she’s become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I’d have hung on then; I swear I would.
There is something so beautiful about hanging on, about growing old together, about appreciating each other for decades.
I laugh at this charming video, but I tear up, too:
I tear up because I want to be like that. I want to still be flirting with my husband and laughing with him and having fun–even if I’m doing it in the atrium of a hospital, like this couple did.
So here’s a thought: You know how when people want to save money they put a picture of the house they want to buy or the vacation they want to take in their wallet, to discourage spending? Or when they want to lose weight they put a picture of themselves at their target weight, or that number, on the fridge, to discourage snacking?
Why not give yourself a goal–a picture of yourself after fifty or sixty years of marriage, if you are both blessed with that long a life. And work towards that goal of growing old together, still totally in love! Aim for it. Love him and build him up so that you’ll have it. When you’re tempted to hold a grudge or blow up at him, ask yourself, “what am I doing to the man that I want to hold on to when I’m 80?”
(I’m not saying ignore big problems; obviously one-size-fits-all marriage advice doesn’t exist, and if you’re in an abusive marriage, I’m not talking to you here).
I don’t know where you are in your marriage today, but I pray these little snippets give you hope. Stick it out for the long run; you’ll be amazed what will happen.
Do you have marriage advice you’d like to give? Thoughts on how to live that daily life with your hubby? Why not share it? Just copy the picture above by right-clicking it and saving it to your computer, and then go to your blog and write a post. Then come back here and enter the URL below. We’d love to read what you have to say!
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
That description of the couple laying together reminds me of the poignant scene in the Notebook, Sheila. Have you seen that movie? Anyway, I think it truly shows how some memories can only be accessed through the love we share with our mates. Great challenge to all of us. The best is yet to come! Thanks for the linkup too, my friend and Happy New Year!
Thank you for this – I really needed this encouragement today!!
I do home healthcare for a couple whose had a stroke. Married 60 years. Most days she still takes her dinner in to eat with him and slips him well mashed up tastes of food he’s not supposed to eat. Saturday she puts on a nice outfit and holds his hand and dances beside his bed…like they always have. My husband asked him how they made it 60 years…he said worry about making the first 30 wonderful, and then when you are too old to do everything habit will get you through
Oh my goodness. What a great thought! Yes I want to grow old with my husband! I’ve always known that and i work to keep my marriage strong. I’ve just never quite looked at it as a goal to attain. Putting up a picture is a brilliant idea!
My husband’s grandparents both developed Alzheimer’s around the same time. They went into an assisted living facility together. I only met them twice but even though they didn’t know their daughters or grandchildren they always knew each other and God. It was the two things they never lost memory of.
That’s so beautiful!
I love, love, love the video! The couple seems to be fun-loving and young at heart! That’s what I want to be when I get older!
I know! Doesn’t it just make you feel great watching it?
I just love the story on being in bed together. My Mom relayed to me about the time her sister’s husband (my uncle) was dying in a hospital. (Physical issues, not mental.) They had been married ‘forever’ and all the family/kids were gathered round. My aunt asked them all to leave the hospital room so she could be with her husband alone. They left and she climbed into his bed so they could spend one last moment together. He passed on to the Lord a short time later.
My own Dad is now in a home and Mom goes to visit him as much as she can (she doesn’t like to drive in the snow or dark). They will be married 60 years this summer. In her loneliness, she has said to me, “I don’t like leaving him to come home. I don’t know where he ends and I begin anymore.” Oh to have that love and connection. (She is one of the youngest of a large family. Most are still alive and many have their still spouses too. 60-70 years of marriage is common in her family. I hope I ‘inherited’ that legacy.)
Aw, that’s so sweet! That’s an amazing legacy indeed.
Thank you for everything on this post, especially the video. Your site has taught me much about marriage and sex that I didn’t know. This happy, long marriage is not my life. I do not want to remain married to a person who has been a neglectful, morose, depressed, negative, and mostly selfish husband for 26 years of marriage.
I married out of desperation when my son was 10 and had been raising him alone, working and homeschooling. Then when I married, it was eight years of hell, when the husband hated my son and told me many times a week, “either he goes or I do”. I didn’t know at the time, he should have gone. I was tired and didn’t want to be on the streets and gave in to his every whim, took care of him and everything in the house, plus did his paperwork for his business for seven years, homeschooled my son and everything. When I went to counseling, he got worse. He wouldn’t talk about anything and when I got him to go to counseling, he wouldn’t talk.
It’s no wonder I’ve been sick for the last 15 years. So I told my self if things don’t emotionally and relationally change, I am out in three years and will live in my rental home that my aunt left me. It doesn’t make sense to be sick and sad for the rest of my life.
Since I was so angry this past summer, realizing how far short of all happiness my marriage was, and I told my husband I can’t live like this anymore, he now helps to make breakfast and lunch and helps with chores. These are things he didn’t do before. He is now saying, “good morning” nicely. But he doesn’t want to spend time together, has little to no interest in sex or affection and will not talk about sex or other intimate or personal concerns. He is no fun, only perfunctory. Dependable when you need a chauffer. He needs and wants lots of attention which I no longer give him when it is my own time. He was an only child until 39 years of age and never had to make his own bed.
So thank you for opening my eyes to a world where people do work on marriages and where some people find some happiness together. I will still read your posts and I have two of your books to read to understand what marriage could be like.
It’s hard to imagine this kind of love when a husband, even a GOOD man, checks out of any effort in the relationship after the vows are said. How many husbands complain of wives checking out after babies but they don’t look at how they checked out after getting married?
Hoping I feel excited about this soon. Right now it’s an overwhelming thought and not really comforting.