How To Stay Married For 50 Years
There is no perfect relationship. Even those who stay married for more than 50 years will tell you that their union is far from perfection. But yes, there is a “forever” type of love – the type that ends when both the husband and the wife are with the Creator. “Til death do us part, right?”
Still, the question remains: how can we achieve that “forever”? Random couples aged 60 to 80 years old in the US, who have been married to the same person for 50 years, were asked of their love secret and they mentioned a few things.
If your relationship has hit a rocky patch, confronting the issues now could transform your marriage — and save it from destruction in the future. — April Eldemire LMFT
Let it go, move one and say “I love you”.
It was revealed by the couples who’s been married for over 50 years that the key to a lasting relationship is “letting petty and small fights go” before sleeping at night. They advised that fights should not last for more than ten minutes. It must be resolved soon by letting it go, moving on without the bad feelings and saying to your spouse – I love you too much for this type of pride fight. Easier said than done, true, but it can be done and it must be done.
Make meaningful time with each other, at least once a week.
When life gets in the way, people tend to be very busy. It can be about work, caring for the kids or other personal activities like gym, book club, hobbies and the likes, but busyness mustn’t be a reason for the couples to not spend time with each other. People who have been married for at least 50 years say that one way to keep being “in love” is to spend meaningful time with each other at least once a week. You can go on a date night, a weekend together, doing a hobby wherein the two of you enjoy or sipping coffee in the morning just talking about your lives – just catching up with what’s going on about one another.
Grass will be greener within the relationship if you nurture it.
The millennials are quick to bounce from one partner to another thinking that the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence”. Well, couples who have been together for five decades will tell you that it’s not true. It’s about exhausting all effort to keep the love alive. Once you find that one person whom you want to spend your life with, make the move to settle down and never let that person get away. One of the couples said that they knew each other for three days and they got married right away. They’ve been married for 53 years.
Husband always remember – happy wife, happy life.
All the husbands agreed that a marriage will truly last a life time if their wives are happy. The overused cliché – “happy wife, happy life” is for real. Why? When a wife is happy and contented with her husband and their life, she will shower him with all the love in the world. That was the comment of every husband who has been asked of the question.
You may or may not be familiar or comfortable with a therapeutic relationship and are not convinced it can really help at this point. — Karen Kleiman MSW, LCSW
Marriage is really hard, but you must make it work if you truly love each other.
The honeymoon stage is bliss, but then everything changes when “real life” steps in. You have babies, bills are piling up, work is unstable and there are disagreements along the way. The essence of marriage is to hold on and keep going even if there are storms along the way. So, if you really love each other and you’re willing to sacrifice a lot of things to be with that person, then, you are in the right track for 50 years of togetherness.