MOONLIGHT AND ROSES

A friend of mine wrote: "Moonlight and roses have a way of turning into dishwater and diapers after the wedding." Can you keep your love strong when the moonlight fades? Is this just a time for enduring, or are the middle years of marriage full of promise?

Couple friends of ours who have kept their love growing through diapers and teenagers agree that love can remain strong if certain foundations are in place from the beginning. Or as coach Bear Bryant said: "If you are going to make chicken salad, you have to start with a chicken." If you want your love to last a lifetime, you might want to pay attention to that to which these two families credit the longevity of their love story.

In the first place, their love was based on COMMITMENT, not an abstract feeling. One of them said: "We believed strongly in the permanence of marriage and were convinced that it was God who had brought us together and that it was His will for us to be married." The other couple said that commitment to their marriage vows was a main reason their home had weathered the storms. "We took our marriage vows voluntarily and we took them seriously," they said. Marriages based on commitment rather than feeling have a much better chance of lasting AND having the "feelings" too.

COMMONALITY - similar backgrounds, common goals and objectives was held up as great helps. "We had fewer adjustments to make." Good marriages that are interracial, interreligious, or span large economic and educational gaps are possible, but they are more difficult to achieve. If two people enter such a marriage, they need realize up front that the path they are choosing is a more difficult one.

HUMOR was listed as a great resource for marriages that last. Being able to laugh AT yourself and WITH your mate is a great tension reliever. Some marriages are too serious to last. I want to say to such marriages, "Hey, guys, lighten up! Marriage is too filled with promise to be taken seriously all the time." Find something to laugh at each day. It will make you a fun person to be married to. There are not many people who seek to be separated from a person who is fun to be with.

COMPROMISE seems like a bad word in some circles. It denotes erosion of conviction. But in family relationships it is a good word. It denotes someone who can entertain the idea that he/she does not have all the right answers. People who can "meet in the middle" when there are honest disagreements will have fewer scars to heal.

"We have RESPECT for each other," was the way a powerful idea was put. Respect for the thoughts, the opinions, the person of another is one of the building blocks of self esteem.

And finally, one of my couples said, "We put the good of the family ahead of individual fulfillment. The grand scheme is greater than any of its parts." When the thing you are working on together, i.e., a love that lasts a lifetime, is greater than any immediate goals, there is little that can prevent the plan from becoming a reality.

So, if you are interested in a love that is still sparkling into the empty nest years, you would do well to listen to my friends - place these elements into your life together: commitment, commonality, humor, compromise, and respect.