Weddings rings symbolizing eternity of love

In May, my husband Bob and I will celebrate our forty-third anniversary. And by all accounts our marriage never had a chance to last. We had both been divorced, both our families were against it because we followed different religions, and our temperaments were far from compatible. He’s an upbeat brainy scientific type. I’m a brooding and quiet creative type. In fact, at the beginning of our relationship he would tell me that in the hierarchy of smartness, scientists were at the top of the heap; English majors were way below. With that I almost hurried out the door. Luckily his views changed over the years. I proved to him that I could work successfully in the aerospace industry as a technical writer and proposal manager. We met on the job and eventually we worked on many proposals together. Because we helped win a lot of contracts we were an in-demand team. He also has embraced the writing career I evolved into after I retired.

Through our years together we’ve had other more pressing challenges than how we were educated or how smart we were. Bob had a son from his first marriage mentally challenged by Down’s syndrome. We had two sons together and experienced huge joy at their accomplishments – one became an accomplished tennis player and the other a talented jazz musician and composer. We also experienced the worries common to all parents whenever there was a serious illness, accident, or school setback.

However, our greatest challenge came when our older son Paul, our musician, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder right after he turned twenty-one years old. We struggled with him for not quite seven years – sometimes successfully and sometimes not – to get him hospitalized when necessary because of his manic behavior or to be compliant with his medications. In the end we failed, and he took his life in the downstairs bathroom of our home when he was twenty-seven, almost fourteen years ago.

We realized right away that our ways of grieving were totally different. Bob was angry at first; I was inconsolable. And this difference should have torn us apart. I couldn’t spill out my emotions because Bob worried I was having a breakdown, and I didn’t like the ill feelings he exhibited about our dead son. Yet I think the main reason we survived was because of the strength of our marriage and all the years we’ve been together.

According to Bob, our marriage survived by a combination of my persistent drive to deal with the pain, suffering, and loss and his willingness to wait until I got better. After the initial shock and our initial reactions, we became patient with each other.

We give each other a lot of space. And we refuse to argue about the small stuff or let the small stuff get in our way.

We also decided to stay in the house we’ve lived in for almost thirty-four years. So many people advised that we move right after Paul died – get a fresh house, my cousin said. But just the work of moving would have made our lives even more traumatic and stressful. I know I couldn’t have survived the act of tearing our house apart and going through all the things. Even though Paul died in our house, we now find a lot of comfort in it. It’s the Family House. Our younger son Ben and his wife got married in our garden two and a half years ago, so it is house still open to more joy as we continue to live here. Plus I get a lot of comfort knowing I can walk from my front door to the beach in less than fifteen minutes. Why would I want to leave that?

And I must say the real glue is the love we share – glue stronger than the tragedy of Paul’s death. It was a love that helped us through the most stressful time a married couple could ever experience. We decided we’re together for the long haul – richer, poorer, sickness, health, and a son’s death. In that we are both very fortunate.