Stay Married One Day At A Time Couples Honored For Being Married 50 Years Or More

Pete and Christine Zimmerman have had a long marriage, but the secret to its 60-year endurance is short.

“We have no secrets between us at all,” said Pete Zimmerman.

“We trust each other very much, and God is with us,” said Christine.

Their marriage has been strengthened by dwelling on a simple saying from the Bible: This is the day the Lord has made and we will be happy in it, Christine said.

On Sunday night, the Zimmermans were one of 229 couples honored at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena for being married 50 years or more.

The celebration was part of two hours of singing, praying and instruction on strengthening marriage. Several thousand people attended the free event, sponsored by the Greater Spokane Association of Evangelicals and the Washington Family Council.

It was no sleepy church service.

While the audience was still finding seats in the darkened cavern of the arena, lights poured onto a large stage at one end. Then the music started. It filled the arena and vibrated through people’s feet.

With his mirror image displayed on a giant television screen behind him, Rev. Dennis Sunderland, pastor at First Assembly of God in Spokane, welcomed the crowd “to this Thanksgiving Celebration of Marriage and Family.”

His welcome was accompanied by fireworks.

For the next half hour, there were prayers, introductions and music from singer Willard McCain, who was backed up by six professional singers, a choir and a band complete with a brass section.

It was all part of a smoothly scripted, $20,000 program aimed at helping people with their marriages.

When it came time for the message, the crowd was no longer allowed to sit in the darkness of the arena. The house lights came on, a bit harsh to the eye, and the message came. A bit harsh, too - at first.

It came principally from Gary Smalley, a marriage mentor who has published 14 books and has been married for 33 years.

“The bad news is every couple who is married is incompatible,” Smalley said. “Did you marry someone who has their own opinions?”

But Smalley had good news, too, news he delivered with the timing of a stand-up comic and which people rummaged through coats and purses to find paper to write down.

There are four patterns of behavior that cause tremendous damage to a marriage, Smalley said.

The first is when a couple starts to argue, one partner will withdraw into silence. “It’s damaging because it instills unresolved anger,” Smalley said.

It is typically the man who withdraws in such an argument because “men don’t know how to fight well without rules,” Smalley said.

The second pattern involves escalating an argument by criticizing a spouse, especially using blaming language that involves the word “you.”

Attacking someone that way makes them feel their opinions are not important, Smalley said.

The last two damaging patterns are when couples belittle each other’s opinions, and when one spouse has a false belief that the other is trying to hurt them.

To deal with these destructive patterns, Smalley recommended “Drive Through Talking,” which is similar to the same way McDonalds employees take customers’ orders.

One spouse listens to what concerns the other spouse and then says it back, the same way a fast-food employee repeats a customer’s order.

“I don’t have to agree. I just have to hear (their concerns) and understand,” he said. “If you do that, the solution becomes obvious.”

Audience member Marlene Olson had much simpler advice on what makes a marriage last. She and her husband Edwin have been married 43 years.

“It’s determination,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo