Mae West is reported to have said: ‘Marriage is an institution, and who wants to live in an institution?’ Well, the answer is many couples do. We are bombarded by statistics which show that two out of three marriages fail - with an even higher rate for second marriages. What we do not hear about are the numbers of couples who stay together for almost a lifetime.

When I was researching for my books on the family I wanted to find out what couples who had been married for twenty, thirty, forty or more years had to say about their lives together. They were very pleased to have their opinions listened to, and I thought it important to see what we could learn from them. (I must declare my own position, because my husband and I have been married for more than forty years.)

Every day the media tell us, with full details, about the changing partners of the famous. This seems to be what makes news, and the fact that vast numbers of men and women just get on with the day to day living and loving together, does not make the headlines. Yet these couples, with some hard work, and some luck, have forged lives together. Of course there have been ‘better’ times and ‘worse’ times, but how is it that these couples have stayed the course while others have fallen at the first or second fence?

When I interviewed successful couples and asked for their ‘words of wisdom’ to pass on, I was told: ‘Bite your tongue over little things’ ‘Learn to say sorry, and mean it’ ‘Be independent at times and dependent at others’ ‘Take time to decide on marriage and then make it work’ and ‘A happy marriage doesn’t just happen, it has to be made to happen’. I think this last comment is particularly wise. Too many of us are brought up with the idea of living ‘happily ever after’ and have a great shock when the honeymoon is over.

As I heard from one man who married in 1950: ‘The possibility that our marriage wouldn’t last forever did not enter my mind. Of course, we had our ups and downs, but that’s life.’ Yes, indeed, that is life, and there must also be space for the maturing and changes which take place in all of us over the years.

Anyone who believes that the person he or she marries stays the same is in for a big shock, and at its worst, can lead to a divorce and a search for a new partner. Asking June why she thinks her thirty-five-year-old marriage is strong, she replied: ‘I honestly don’t know. But it is.’ Quite likely that is how many married couples would reply. I know that those of us who are into a long happy marriage, and still counting, are fortunate. How much that is down to our own early experience of family life, the love which holds a couple together, or an ability to talk things through, I don’t know. But I do know that a loving marriage provides a good strong platform for the children of that marriage, and looking back over the years I have so many memories, some happy, some sad, but all of which I hope will combine to keep me and my husband warm in our old age together.

We may live in a throw away society today, and if one car doesn’t suit, the fashion is to change it up for another, but sadly this same principle is too often applied to a partner.

© Jill Curtis 2002

To read more about family relationships get Jill’s new book Find Your Way Through Divorce