The Secret to a Long Lasting Marriage

I just celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary. A friend from college congratulated me and told me that was a great accomplishment. She was one of the bridesmaids in my wedding. She told me that during a two week span, she was in three weddings, one of them, being mine. The other two never lasted and she just wanted to let me know how proud she was of us. I thought that was a sweet gesture on her part. I started thinking what it was that has linked us together for so long.

My husband is shorter than me. It didn’t bother me until an aunt of mine commented on my wedding that it wasn’t that noticeable that I was taller than him. I hadn’t realized people were talking.

In so many ways, we are the opposite of one another. He loves music. He’s way into all kinds of music. I could care less. He made fun of me, when he first met me, because the only group I really listened to in high school was ABBA. I was never going to live that one down. I played a lot of basketball growing up. Of all the sports in the world, he hates basketball. He’s a terrible test taker. He can’t take a test to save his life. I’m a really good test taker. Give me a test on anything and I could probably do fairly well on it. Not because I know everything, I just have an instinct for tests. (Now you can see how valid those are). He’s a night owl, I’m now a morning person (I’m a recovering night owl). His love language is physical touch. Mine is acts of service. My husband’s a peace maker. I hold grudges. So many opposites, so what makes this work? I think back to a dog we used to have.

We used to kind of have a black lab growing up. He wasn’t really our dog, he was our grandpa’s dog. But he pretty much lived at our house. He was an older dog, who adopted our family as his own. My grandpa lived across the street, yet “Pup” was always with us. I remember one time, we drove a snowmobile with a sleigh attached to the back, all the way to this frozen river to go ice fishing. Now it’s the middle of winter, with just snow and ice everywhere. It took us a long time to get there. After we were there for more than an hour, here comes Pup, his tongue hanging out, out of breath trotting up to our snowmobile. He had followed our scent and found us. He never wanted to be far from us. Every Sunday, we would come out from church and there would be Pup, laying by the truck, waiting for us. He was so old, he couldn’t jump into the back of the truck on his own. We had to push his rump to help him into the truck. It never stopped him from following us where ever we went. It got to be a joke around town to see my mom pushing Pup’s rump up into the truck because he had followed us as my mom ran errands around town. Pup was such a loyal dog. And that’s what I thought of, when I thought what works in our relationship and marriage. My husband and I are both extremely loyal people. We’re just like Pup. Both of us are.

I think loyalty is a rare commodity in the day and age in which we live. Most people are not loyal. However, we keep friends for a long time, unless you hurt us really bad. Even then, we may still be friendly to you. I can’t speak for the hubby, but I can speak for myself. I can’t imagine hurting him by being disloyal. It’s just not in my makeup to do that.

God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” He apparently puts a high premium on loyalty. God’s loyal to us. And I think, as long as the hubby and I stay close to God, these two loyal people will stay loyal to one another.

So that’s the secret to our success in marriage. We are like Pup, two very loyal people. I guess it all boils down to the fact that we are like dogs. So if you want a long lasting marriage, be like Pup, be like a dog, stay loyal.