Several months ago I was talking with a friend about marriages. Do you know any happy marriages? I asked. Because I don't. My friend rattled off several. Hmmmmm.....this has been living in the back of my mind since that conversation. I keep looking at people I know. I have come up with a few. Two of my close friends who are widows had two of the happiest marriages I knew, and their husbands both died relatively young. One was 56 and the other was 68. But I know some people whose marriages are happy, I think. It seems that the more I scratch the surface with most marriages, I see unhappiness. I have made a concerted effort not to write off a marriage if there is some unhappiness, but I'm pretty picky in this area. A little happiness, an occasional disagreement are part of life and part of all relationships. I have decided I will not write off a marriage on account of a little discord.
#1 R & B:
R & B got married when R was 20 and B was 22. He was a substitute teacher and a lifeguard who was about to start pharmacy school. She was just graduating from college. Her father was not happy. He thought B was a flake. R isn't smiling in the picture of her walking down the aisle with her father in her wedding album because at the top of the aisle her father had told her it still wasn't too late to back out. He had even offered to send her to Europe with a friend for the summer. Right there. Right when he was about to walk her down the aisle.
B dropped out of pharmacy school. He changed his mind. He substituted and then decided to go to dental school. He took R to Chicago for it and they came back when he graduated. He became a brilliant dentist, a children's dentist no less. He had a big practice in Westwood and now teaches at the university dental school. R finished her credential and became a teacher. She put B through dental school. They had two sons.
The wonderful thing I see in their marriage is that they think the world of each other. I worked with R for a long time. Although she is gifted with kids, she was flighty, stubborn, and at times uncooperative with staff. I soon learned that R is an interpersonal kind of person. Work is not her priority. Her friends and family are. I consider myself very fortunate to be one of her friends. But my co-workers could be slightly rude and disrespectful of her. It's tough when someone doesn't want to play along, and R could be that way. She was nice about it but she had her limits. Once I had a birthday party, and R & B came. One of the other teachers who was there made this great observation. She said, "You get a whole new appreciation for R when you see her through B's eyes." Their devotion to each other is remarkable. He talks about her in the most loving and respectful terms. He loves who she is. He even loves her when she gets flighty and anxious. Since you don't know what a good wife, mother, friend and family member she is when you're working with her, it takes time with B for you to get a window into R's world outside of work.
R & B have had their crosses to bear. They have cared for aging parents, both his and hers. Their son lost an eye in an unfortunate encounter with a fork at a Greek restaurant. B's sister is a princess with a huge sense of entitlement. She came to visit them and squatted for nine months. She's an attorney in several states but for some reason has no job and has not saved for retirement, which is quite a feat considering that all of her work has been with DA's and PD offices where witholdings for retirement are mandatory. R & B would tell her she needed to look for a job and she would say that, no, what she needed was another yoga class. They even got health insurance for her. The squatting dragged on and on until R & B had to throw her out. Then when B's mother died, she sued R & B----because she's a lawyer, I guess. B started riding bicycles about 15 years ago and has had two terrible falls, one resulting in a multi-fractured tibia (complete with steel rods) and the other ending with a broken hip. But through all of these times, R & B have been of one mind. It's refreshing to know that trials didn't separate them, they more likely united them. Bill and I didn't do crises well. Only illnesses. We did illnesses well. I took great care of him when he was ill; he was a super nurse for me when I was ill. Beyond that, the other crises usually pulled us apart.
After 41 years of marriage, R & B are still going strong. Nothing is going to tear them apart, not even if R found out that B still smokes.
No comments:
Post a Comment