HOW TO STAY (BLISSFULLY) MARRIED 41 YEARS

Today is Ouida’s and my 41st wedding anniversary, this 18th day of February, 1985, and I have the urge to say something about it, even if it has been rather uneventful. When one moves into his fifth decade of marriage it may be in order to say something about how it happened and why it has lasted.

I spent a few hours atop our carport re-roofing, and Ouida joined me part of that time, which can be more romantic than you might think. At your next wedding anniversary you might consider a roofing job together. That of course is no chore for Ouida, who can pour concrete, lay bricks, and do plumbing. I came down long enough to order her a bouquet of spring flowers, to be delivered with my usual note: I goofed, I am sorry, I love you. My florist realizes by now that I have not sinned in particular, but that I am covered for the moment just in case. Besides, Ouida always laughs when she reads the note, but not as much as when I tell her that she’s greater than Lincoln and much more handsome.

Ouida spent part of the day taking her mother to the doctor, and I got away long enough to join several in our church in a special prayer circle. Gn the way back I stopped at the Little-Chapel-in-the-Woods, erected back in the 1930’s and dedicated by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and situated on the campus of Texas Woman’s University, from which Ouida graduated and where I later served as a professor —and it was in that Chapel that we were married 41 years ago today.

It was a sentimental journey, and I did it alone this time, though Ouida and I often visit there. I wanted to thank God for Ouida in that Chapel and on our anniversary. I remembered how beautiful she was and how ignorant I was. Then I hurried home where we got out the old wedding pictures, which always seems like a casualty survey when one counts the deaths, the divorces, the tragedies, the heartaches of those gathered that day. I can’t do that sort of thing except about every fifth anniversary. Ouida’s mother was then so young and beautiful at 47, and now she is aged and senile in one of our upstairs bedrooms, locked in for her own safety, and barely a tithing of her once glorious womanhood. I don’t try anymore to answer the why’s of life. I just seek to be what God wants me to be.

While at the Chapel I recalled two remarkable experiences about our wedding day. I drove in from Dallas that day, where I was then a high school teacher, and parked in front of the Chapel, well in advance of my fateful hour. Minutes later Ouida’s father pulled in beside me and unceremoniously began to take Ouida’s trunk and suitcases out of his car and put them into mine. Watching this at a distance, I found this to be a very sobering experience. I could hear him say, “All right, you had to have her, you’ve got her!” At that moment I had my first and only fleeting doubt, and I wondered if I should not stop him and concede that he might be right, “Maybe we had better give this thing more time!” After all, Ouida was only 19, he had complained, anyone knows that is too young for a girl to get married.

The other thing was that the old preacher who performed the ceremony, a longtime friend of mine, forgot his lines and I had to prompt him. I have been married but once and I had to perform my own wedding ceremony!

So that is part of the answer on how to stay married. It must help to have an uneasy start, especially if it makes a couple more realistic about what marriage is all about. If life is difficult and even tragic, marriage will also be. Unrealistic expectations is at the root of many marital problems. A marriage must be tough in that it takes life as it comes, a day at a time, and makes the most of it which is even better than making the best of it. Bob Schuller says it well with “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” Right on! It is tough marriages that last.

Speaking from the husband’s perspective, my recipe for a good marriage is simple, suggested by the title of H. Page Williams’ book, Do Yourself A Favor: Love Your Wife. Even if one is thinking mainly of himself, he is wise to adopt the principle laid down by Jesus: It is more blessed to give than to receive. And it is certainly more blessed to give than to take, an attitude that is certain to hurt a marriage.

As the old hit song put it, the way to treat a woman is to love her, love her, love her. I would add extravagantly. To love your wife pays high dividends, to love her extravagantly makes you rich. Such love can be (must be!) cultivated. If a man does not love his wife extravagantly, let him start acting that way (All men know what this involves), and it will soon be for real. If you say that love must be in the heart, you are of course right, but it must start with the will. A man can will to love his wife. It is the malady of not wanting that devastates marriages. If one wants his wife to change so that he can love her more, it can be done in only one way: love her! In time she will respond. Do yourself a favor, love your wife, extravagantly. It will so dramatically change your life that you will think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

This means to tell her you love her again and again, over and over, every day, and to show it in lots of ways. Make over her. Pamper her. Spoil her. She will be healthier, happier, and more beautiful. You cannot give bountifully without receiving bountifully. The more you do for her the more you do for yourself. Treat her like a thoroughbred and she’ll not be a nag!

This means never fault her for anything and never complain at anything she does. Keep talking about how much you love her, how beautiful she is, and emphasize the things you appreciate. After awhile she will have no faults and do no wrong, or your love will be so generous that you will see only the good. The biggest lie ever told is that every couple needs an occasional fight, “to get it out of your system,” they will say. Hogwash! A maturing marriage need have no fussing at all.

Our son David called from Missouri today, remembering our anniversary. He is now a family counselor, and he told us that his associates do not believe him when he tells them that his parents never in all his life had an argument, not even one. I told him that he could tell them that I have a sure way of avoiding even the possibility of an argument: I do whatever my wife tells me!

Fussing leads to frustration and frustration to poor self-image, and this often leads to infidelity, a curse to any marriage. In this hedonistic age of ours 60% of the men and 40% of the women are unfaithful in marriage at one time or another. This is more than a lack of commitment and discipline, for infidelity is the ultimate in selfish pride. Only love-oriented marriages, a love that seeks to give rather than to take, will save our nation from the dissolution of the home.

When a man does himself a favor by loving his wife, he will help her around the house and with the children. He will listen to her, do things with her, simple things, and he will understand her greatest need, to be appreciated. And let’s add a touch of humor to all this. Ghandi, who went far in changing his part of the world, said if it had not been for a sense of humor he would have committed suicide. So with a marriage: without humor it commits suicide. Humor is of course joy and laughter, but it is more. It is an attitude toward life, an attitude of not taking ourselves too seriously.

Most of what I have said would apply to any marriage, and that is why unbelievers who practice unselfish love have longer and happier marriages than many Christians. It is an example of how God’s grace reaches out and blesses those who do not even honor him, for love and happiness are His gifts.

When the Christian graces are added to all this, when God is exalted in the home, then a couple moves from a good marriage to the abundant life that our Lord brought to this earth. When there is trust in time of trouble and hope in time of tragedy, and an assurance that all is well all of the time in spite of hardships, then there is a relationship that transcends the wisdom of this world.

Now that I’ve overflowed into the day after our 41st, I can tell you that Ouida is at the county courthouse sitting on a jury. She could have been excused because of her invalid mother, but I told her she should do her civic duty and that I would care for Mother Pitts today. She called at noon to tell me she had been selected and that she and five others would determine the fate of a DWI felon who had pleaded guilty, hopefully before the day is out. I envy her. I have always wanted to serve on a jury. The court has summoned me often, but I have never been selected. With the judge on the bench and with Ouida in the jury box, I am not sure I would want to be that DWI.

In the meantime I have made several trips across the street to help a neighbor, a man who lives alone, who is having asthmatic attacks. When I thought he might not be able to keep on breathing, I called the paramedics, who told him it was imperative that they take him to the hospital, but he steadfastly refused to go. Since one cannot be taken against his will, they told me to watch him and if he goes unconscious to call them, for according to law unconsciousness allows for “implied consent.” So I go over and check on him. He lies there in pain, laboring to breath, but will not be helped, even when I offer to take him in my car —and he carries a hospitalization card from Bell Telephone. “Why do you do this to yourself?,” I implore, “Why will you not get the help you need?” I don’t want to go!, he keeps saying. Now that I have called his kin in Fort Worth maybe they can do something with him. Isn’t man a strange critter!

It is 6:00 p.m. and Ouida is not home yet. Maybe she had them hang the poor guy out on the courthouse lawn. It has happened before, in the old days. I can hardly wait until she gets home. We’ll have a lot to talk and laugh about. —the Editor

P.S. Ouida did not hang the defendant but she did hang the jury. The D.A. asked for a year in prison and a $1,000 fine, but Ouida was the only juror that agreed, the others wanting a lighter sentence. As she emphasized the seriousness of the crime, that he tried to run over the arresting officer and elude arrest, two or three at last agreed with her. She finally made a mild compromise in order to get a conviction: Ten months, $1,000 fine. After the verdict the jury was told things that because of a technicality could not be told during the trial: the defendant was a dope peddler, had done time in a Federal pen, and that was not his first DWI One juror, angry with Ouida for her austerity (“We must do our duty and send a message to our community about drunk drivers”), was then pleased that they had put the old boy away for awhile. I told her that she was a moral hero, like Patrick Henry, and that her courage in the jury room might well have saved someone’s life by putting that potential murderer behind bars. “Today you might have saved the life of someone’s grandchild,” I told her.