Respect, Work Make A Marriage

The husband and wife were in their late 70s. They’d been in a horrible car accident and were recovering in the same hospital room. Their eyes peered out from small holes in the casts that covered their faces.

The husband, despite reassurances that his wife would live, remained inconsolable. He finally told his doctor it was because he couldn’t see his wife through the eye holes. He missed her face.

Raymond Carver wrote about the couple in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The piece of fiction expresses the tenderness of long-term love. It’s unusual to find in any medium these days realistic depictions of solid and enduring marriages.

Today is World Marriage Day, a day not as well known as Valentine’s Day, but one intended to honor “the married couple as the head of the family and the basic unit of society.” World Marriage Day began in Louisiana in 1981 as a way to elevate public awareness about the positive aspects of marriage. It will be celebrated in 79 countries this year. Saturday, dozens of Inland Northwest couples renewed their wedding vows at St. Aloysius Church.

Judy Leach, one of the event organizers, said World Marriage Day is “a time to be proud. If we are working at our marriages, we deserve the occasion to celebrate it.”

Unfortunately, few examples exist in popular culture that show couples working at marriage. Couples in television sitcoms are often adversaries rather than companions. And what can we learn of marriage by studying the union of Michael Jackson and Lisa-Marie Presley? Or the fairy tale wedding of Princess Di and Prince Charles?

The reality of a good marriage is both richer and more mundane than popular culture recognizes. Good marriages require communication, friendship, mutual respect. And an acceptance of the ups and downs natural to any marriage. In the book “Loose Change,” author Sara Davidson asked her friend Candy why her marriage was the only one she knew that survived the 1960s.

Candy shared her secret: “The marriages I know of that work seem to be where both people can accept the fact that it isn’t going to be great all the time. There will be problems and you can’t fix them overnight, maybe you can’t fix them for years, but it’s all right, they’ll be resolved over time. Things will get better and bad again and better and bad again and that’s your marriage.”

Overall, marriage is a lifelong friendship like no other. Couples promise to love and honor one another, to remain steadfast through sickness and health, through good times and bad. Work at those vows and when death finally does do you part, you’ll miss each other’s eyes, even though you saw them day after day for years.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board