Tonight my husband and I were lucky enough to enjoy a rare and much appreciated date! Thanks to the warm and gracious babysitting of my mother-in-law and her dear friend, we were able to flee the coop and eat a meal where we neither had to shop for the food, prepare it, or clean our dishes and pans. Heavenly.
After dinner we went to see "Blue Valentine", a romantic drama starring two pretty incredible actors from our own generation. The story itself, about a young married couple with a small child, was deeply engrossing for us and we thought the acting was sensational. The film raised a lot of questions about love, marriage and family that we ended up discussing over our entire drive home.
In the film the characters have encountered a rough spot in their relationship. (This does not give anything away about the film, as you feel the tension between them from the first two or three minutes of the movie.) One wonders immediately if they will sink or swim.
As we headed back to our house I thought about the characters from the film, and about the idea of a love that weathers all storms and lasts a lifetime. It made me reflect deeply upon my own parents' marriage which lasted for 34 years until my father's death.
I think the most important thing I learned from my mom and dad about marriage is true love means staying open to falling in love over and over again with the same person.
When my parents met in 1974, they were both dishy in their own ways. If I do say so myself, and I do, I think each of my folks was a catch. Dad was a tall, athletic Midwesterner transplanted to southern California for its amazing weather and beaches. He loved running, boogie boarding, playing frisbee, swimming and doing pull-ups. As far back as I can remember, my dad always seemed to be stretching to get ready to exercise. He was also a talented musician and a brilliant guy in general, recruited as an officer with the US Navy who worked in cryptography breaking codes in Washington DC during the Korean War thanks to his sharp and fast mind. By the time he met my mother, he was also a newly tenured professor of music specializing in violin and viola. With his gentle manners and kind heart, it was easy to overlook the blatant '70s comb-over hairdo (Dad, what were you thinking???) and thick framed glasses to see his sparkling blue eyes.
Mom was a goddess. With her smoldering looks and dedication she achieved real success in Hollywood at a relatively young age, and was busy pursuing her career in television when she met Dad. She was patient, considerate, warm and full of life. She enjoyed cooking and baking, and kept my old-school father in such tremendous comfort... sewing, crafting, painting, wallpapering and creating a beautiful home for the family. She ironed my father's shirts and pants, starching his collars and making sure he looked well coiffed every single day. She kept the family budget and kept us on track, still managing to give us the small extras whenever she could. She was (and still is) an incredible mother, not only to her own kids but also to my father's two sons whom she loved as her own. Despite the lack of a college education she kept up with my father in every single capacity and was clearly his intellectual equal. It was a great match, mainly because they had similar expectations of the role of husband and wife in a marriage and they were both deeply appreciative of the unique skills the other brought to the table.
Over time, life did what life does. It changed both of them in ways that were unexpected. It tested their love at every turn, with every new age and stage.
Here are some of the challenges my parents faced together during their marriage:
- Combining two families
- Unexpected pregnancy late in life... starting over with diapers and bottles at 50? Yikes!
- Raising teenagers
- Mortgaging their home to pay for (my) college
- Empty Nest syndrome
- Retirement
- Alzheimer's Disease
Suddenly the alone time she had enjoyed Monday thru Friday from 8 until 5 for the first twenty years of their marriage had vanished - Dad liked to watch noisy baseball, football, basketball games and the news. He played talk radio and music loudly, so that they could be heard all over the house. He was probably a little bored, and he constantly wanted to see if she felt like taking a walk, going for a drive, doing something together.
My normally patient mother had become frustrated and a little stressed out, unsure of how to grapple with the change in her role and her sphere of influence. She was irritated with him and anxious to get out of the house, so she began to go 'shopping' nearly every day - shopping being something my father hated to do, so this could win her back some privacy for a while.
At the time, I wondered what was going to happen to my folks... would they survive this new physical proximity day-in and day-out?
However when I next visited several months later, a change had taken place. Mom and dad could not have been more affectionate with each other. Suddenly they were holding hands all of the time, smiling and laughing and acting like couple of newlyweds. What happened? I couldn't figure out how such a significant change had taken place. I watched them carefully, suspiciously, wondering what was going on.
After a few days though, the truth hit me. My folks were in love! Not that they had been OUT of love before... but quite clearly, they had fallen IN love with each other all over again. Somehow they had managed to work through their different ideas of personal space and find a middle ground that worked for them both. Leaving the awkward transitional phase behind, they had re-established the boundaries of their marriage around the ample time and flexibility my father's retirement afforded. After more than twenty years of marriage, they were acting like a couple of infatuated teenagers again.
This is just one of the many times that I watched my folks renegotiate the terms of their 34 year marriage and find a way to appreciate the best in each other as they continued to grow and change. I never asked exactly how they did it ~ Did they talk it out? Did they fight? Did they take a little space? Did they get more intimate, or find more common hobbies? Whatever they did, it really worked for them and I was lucky to witness a renaissance of love between two of the most important people in my life.
I feel so lucky to have watched and learned from my mom and dad. My husband and I are working on nine years together, a tiny fraction of the time my own parents devoted to each other... and theirs was a late marriage. Yet already we have both evolved significantly as people. Our priorities, dreams and even lifestyle have shifted so much since our mid-twenties. We continue to learn from each other and to grow as individuals and also as a family. Yet, we have so much left to discover, so many lessons left to experience together during the next 50 years or so.
I'm grateful to have the example of my folks to turn to. No matter how many times throughout the coming years my husband and I may need to adapt and adjust to each other ~ no matter how many times we will witness new things to love and appreciate about each other, it IS possible to fall in love again and again with the same person... and it is truly worthwhile.
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