What makes a marriage?
“Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work.” - Author Unknown
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
2 of 3 free articles.
When does marriage begin — at the end of the wedding with the first kiss between bride and groom, the first time a husband says, “This place is a mess,” before sitting down to watch a football game or the first time a wife yells at husband for failing to pick up milk and bread?
Long after the wedding pictures are consigned to an album on the shelf and the lacey wedding dress that took months to find has been hermetically sealed in a box, life and marriage go on.
To find out what makes a marriage last, it’s best to ask those folks who have been married awhile.
Sharon and John Payne married in 1968 in Great Falls. Their marriage is 43 years young. When they met, Sharon was teaching in Great Falls, and John was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Every summer for 34 years, they returned to the Flathead because Sharon’s father, Loren Foot, had a cabin on Flathead Lake. Eventually they moved back to the area full time.
“Marriage is hard work,” John said. “It has its ups and downs.”
Alice Erb agreed. She and her husband, Gary, will be married 55 years in February. Alice was born and raised in Deer Lodge, while Gary and his sister came to live with their grandparents in Deer Lodge when Gary was in grade school.
“It (Deer Lodge) is a small town; everybody knows everybody,” Alice said.
Gary went off to the service right after high school. The Erbs started dating after he got out of both the United States Army and the United States Navy.
When they married, Alice said, “I was very, very young.”
There are stages you go through, John explained. First, there’s the look-at-us, we’re married and it’s so neat stage.
Then kids enter the picture. The Paynes raised three children, while the Erbs had four biological children and one adopted child. According to John, first thing you know you have a station wagon. Maybe a parent had to trade in his or her sports car for an unadventurous vehicle. In today’s world it would probably be a mini van.
“Kids turn it all around – they are the epiphany of life,” John said. “Kids are the great equalizer.”
It doesn’t matter who the parents are, children spill their milk, ask dad why that lady has funny pants on, get sick at inopportune times and always have a hug for their parents.
“We started having children right away,” Alice said. “They bound us together in so many ways.”
John cautioned that when a couple has children they have a responsibility to them but not for them.
The most important thing is to be responsible to your spouse.
“There’s something to that old saw,” John said, “it’s never yours or mine, it’s ours.”
“Marriage is a struggle, but it's got so many rewards,” John said, explaining that marriage is a platform to go through life.
“I think you have to work at it,” Alice noted, “and we both did.”
She thinks the high divorce rate in the United States might be because “everything in our society is a throwaway, and people are used to instant gratification.”
“Back then people just worked at it (marriage) more,” Alice added.
“I think marriage is something everybody ought to do. Sexuality doesn’t matter; it’s the lifelong partnership,” John said.
Although he said it’s a cliché, John explains marriage this way — sorrows are cut in half, joys are multiplied.
