Hi friends and family,
Mom and dad taught a couples class at their church for years. They enjoyed it and I’m sure their students came out of the class with wonderful insight into what it is like to be married. This story is probably based on one of their lectures/lessons.
It’s been an eventful week. After such a hectic week it’s refreshing to sit back and read some relaxing and happy words written by a man who didn’t know what the word ‘hate’ meant. When your passion and life are full of love, it’s difficult to fit hateful feelings into it. Drop the word ‘hate’ from your vocabulary. It’s an exercise that will yield excellent results. You will fill the hateful void with love . . . Try it!
With all my love to all of you,
David T
“Love Should Be Forever”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
One of my favorite television advertisements is the diamond ad. Maybe you’ve seen it:
A young couple walking along a wooded path pass an older couple who are walking much slower, each smiling, holding hands. The young woman turns after passing them, smiles and reaches for her significant other’s hand, her third finger, left hand holding a beautiful diamond ring.
A voice-over says, “There is nothing as old as love and diamonds.”
That’s what love between a husband and wife should be: Older and harder than a diamond.
This ad came to mind when I decided to write about marriage — problems associated with it and the assault on it.
We all joke about marriage. In the Sunday funny papers the Lockhorns’ conflicts draw great chuckles. I’ve heard the comment among the guys that their “ball and chain” is home watching TV or something. And [there is] the comment: “She’s not a lady, she’s my wife.” Humor probably masks a male not wanting to [seem] to be “a sissy.”
Marriage is a wonderful way of life. There is stability, harmony and indescribable “fuzziness” to being married. Just watch a happily married couple at a party and see how often they catch one another’s eye across the room and smile. Watch them hold hands as they walk side-by-side.
How do we get married love that everyone desires?
First, the real depth of a couple’s chaste love is only learned through meeting the challenges of forgoing conjugal pleasures outside marriage.
Through spousal love a couple learn such lessons as patience, kindness, forbearance, trust and hope.
Too often, unmarried couples are led to believe that if they sleep together, these essential qualities will follow automatically. In marriage sex is important, but other factors enter in to make the couple supremely happy.
There was a sugary yet excellent phrase that was made famous in the book and Hollywood movie, Love Story: “Love is when you never have to say I’m sorry.”
A positive, more meaningful spin on the phrase is: You love your husband or wife so much your entire life is devoted to making that person happy.
And that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it? That’s what you promise each other when you take your vows . . . spending a lifetime making your spouse happy.
A priest told me that to have a happy marriage from start to finish, each of the couple must pledge every minute of each 24-hour period, 365 days a year, helping and loving each other.
And the more I travel this life’s adventurous road that Margie and I embarked upon September 2, 1950, the more I think I understand what he meant.
One secret: Margie and I have learned is to keep our mouths shut when we are angry with one another. We know the spoken word cannot be retrieved and is remembered.
Many times marriage partners believe they should share their lives equally — each giving 50 percent. They share expenses, if they work. They share taking care of the children. They share work around the house. All at a 50-50 level. If that’s what you believe, you are absolutely wrong!
Marriage is not a 50-50 proposition. Couples sharing their marriage at the 50-50 level have a 50-50 chance at failure, which is about what the rate of divorce is in this country.
Each of the couple must contribute not 50 percent, not 60, not 70, not 80, not 90, but instead each must contribute 100 percent of themselves. Marriage is a full-time, 168-hour-a-week job.
When contributing 100 percent of themselves to the marriage, in many cases there may be much duplication. So what? That’s togetherness. And that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it?
By doing this the couple will discover an almost perfect feeling of happiness. At the same time you’ll notice that as a couple you become closer. And that’s what life and matrimony is all about?
To emphasize [of] what I have written there was a segment two years ago on the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, about an older man caring for his wife who had Alzheimer’s Disease.
The man was asked why he didn’t institutionalize his wife because the care he was giving her was so hard on him.
He said, “When I married Agnes I took her for better or worse and in sickness and in health. While this is difficult, It’s love.”
Before she got [so] bad she told him she wanted to die at home. And he promised her she would.
Isn’t that the kind of love we all desire? Isn’t that the real meaning of happiness?
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