How to stay married for 22 years

don’t know what others are doing wrong, but we’re definitely doing some things right.

When my wife and I got married on 14.07.1997, I was 24 years old. My wife was three years older. We knew each other at this time, only a little more than one year.

It sounds strange, but I never doubted from the first day on that we would hold out for a very long time. Neither my wife nor I were children of divorce. I simply assumed that we had inherited good genes in this respect.

Today, after over 22 years, I look back on a turbulent time that was not always easy, but never hopeless.

In three years we celebrate the silver wedding and sometimes when we talk about it, we are shocked at how old we have become. Only we don’t feel that way. You imagine an old married couple differently.

In these 22 years, we have seen many relationships fail around us. Couples that we thought would stay together forever and couples that we thought would last a couple of years.

Of course, you will quickly bid each other a verdict about what these couples have done wrong. But then you realize that this is wrong. Sometimes nobody did anything wrong, and even if they did, it’s not for outsiders to judge.

Instead, I wonder what my wife and I may have done right. Why has our marriage lasted so long now?

Here are the reasons I found.

We talk — always and about everything

Silence and indifference are not compatible with a partnership. When my wife comes home from work, she tells me about her day, and I tell her what I wrote that day and what I plan to do next.

In movies, you sometimes see scenes in which the man suddenly puts on his jacket and says to his wife: “I’ll be gone another half hour.” No explanation and no questions.

If I just disappeared without an explanation, my wife would have a real problem with that. In a partnership, nothing is so private that you can keep it to yourself. If I think my wife is not interested in where I’m going, I don’t care what thoughts she has.

Silence is indifference to the feelings of others.

We argue — always and sometimes hard

A deep connection will endure any quarrel. I even believe that conflict is necessary and vital. If a partner avoids every dispute, he is not honest. We never like everything the other does and says.

If we nevertheless shy away from every argument, we will pretend harmony to the partner where there is none. But the anger you swallow is still there. It decomposes us from within. And before we know it, we hate our partner, who in our opinion is to blame for our stomach pains.

To speak openly about what is going on in us in a quarrel gives the partner the chance to react. If he does not know what annoys us, he cannot think about it.

Like any other conversation, quarreling helps us to get to know each other better over time and to understand our partner better and better.

In my opinion, artificial harmony, on the other hand, only leads to alienation.

We support each other unconditionally

As much as we may argue — as soon as one of us is attacked from the outside, no sheet of paper fits between us. Nobody can curse with me about my wife or vice versa. We defend each other, even if the other may never know about it.

That is loyalty, and for me, reliability is also a fundamental building block of a functioning partnership.

We have survived crises

To almost go broke and to have survived it together, welds a couple together.

To have said mean things during a fierce argument and still be able to make yourself feel good again is the way a couple welds together.

To stand by the other when the parents die, a couple welds together.

Burying a beloved pet and comforting each other on the blessing side welds a couple together.

We remain open and curious together

Neither my wife nor I are nostalgic. To hear only the old bands and the old songs would be like death to us.

In the car we hear the current download charts, we go to hip hop concerts or, like in three days, to Metallica. We don’t always talk about the past and don’t think the youth is strange.

We try at least one new meal every week, and when a new restaurant opens, we take a look at it.

I think you stay interesting for each other if you don’t freeze. We live today. Yesterday is for the photo album.

We still love each other

That’s supposed to be self-explanatory. But doesn’t everyone know these couples, who are obviously only together out of habit or because they don’t want to burden the children? Or because divorce is so expensive and exhausting?

Well, such marriages can last a very long time, but at some point, it will be enough for one of the two, and it will break. With us, I do not see it on the horizon. And that is because we really still love each other and are not just used to each other.

Conclusion

Maybe I’m wrong about every single thing. Perhaps you think I’m a complete idiot and have no idea what a good marriage really is. And you can be absolutely right.

I don’t really know anything about these things.

All I have are subjective notions about what we do right. But that’s quite enough for me.

If I have forgotten something important, write it in the comments. Even after 22 years, I still learn every day.

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