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Subject: |
Long Term Marriage |
| Date: |
2009-10-21
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Long Term Marriage
Dear Dr. Laura,
When I was younger I thought you were too "black or white". Now I'm pushing sixty and I see things through your eyes.
My husband and I were married when I was seventeen and he was nineteen. We were fresh out of high school and the chemistry between us was too much to withhold. He was from a traditionally Catholic family who would not tolerate us living together, and because we wanted to have sex and were in love, we married. Our parents had to sign for us because we were both under age. Neither of us had a clue of what this commitment really had in store long term, we just knew we wanted to be together.
Thank God we had the common sense to not get pregnant. We waited five (growing up) years before starting a family. We had two children, a boy and a girl, and began a family life that was stable. There were always struggles, mostly financial, but we somehow saw them through. There were times when I had to work to help out. The kids survived.
Dr. Laura, I hear so many people on your program who are either struggling in their marriages or have given up the battle, and their struggles are no different than ours have been. We have had ongoing financial issues, family issues, alcohol issues, a family molestation issue, a daughter who had a child in high school, and we have even committed sins against each other that we have had to forgive. The bottom line is that we didn't know how to survive without each other.
I am my children's mother, but before that, I am my husband's lover, girlfriend and wife. Even when I haven't always wanted to, I have been there for him. I have gotten up with him every morning that he has gone to work and made his lunch, done his laundry and made a lovely home for him, even though I, too, work full time. In return, he works tirelessly to provide our primary income. He is my hero who can fix anything, build and remodel, and make me laugh every day. We will be married forty years next July, and I am so glad we stuck it out.
Please give this message to your callers who have "fallen out of love" with their spouse...over a lifetime you fall in and out of love. Wait it out. Don't make your children the only common denominator in your marriage. Someday they'll be gone, and all you'll have left are the things you learned to do together. The day does come when you both will say, " I'm so glad we stuck it out!"
Thank you for your morality and for teaching women how to be better women. I do love you!
T.
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