Love is what gets you started on the rest of your life. Love is what makes those 42-year-old photographs so drastically different than the way we all are now. How could anyone look so handsome or so beautiful without having that glow within? Most of us even weighed a whole lot less in those early days than we do today! We were so happy that we instinctively ate less and ate healthier food, and we enjoyed life more.  We wanted to go hiking in the hills or walk along beaches or stride from the far reaches of parking lots to the supermarkets or shopping malls. And nothing ached when we did it either.

 

Then as the years passed, the stresses of life began to creep in. Maybe there was a child or four we now had to provide for, care for, and try to steer through the literal nightmares of the public education system in the USA. A line appeared here, a wrinkle of concern there, even a smidgen of irritability when the other spouse wasn’t taking sorely needed interest in family concerns. 

 

How do we keep this marriage going?  There is little time for each other, even when a friend or relative takes the kids out for an afternoon. The house is full of waiting everyday chores, or yearly taxes to do, or we just collapse from exhaustion.  We learn how important patience is.  And even more important, we realize that sharing the load is needed now more than ever.  Some have said that marriage is never 50/50, it’s always 80/20. As long as the 80/20 is never all one way, the bonds will strengthen between the two life partners during the give and take.

 

After the kids have flown off to their own nests, illness begins to take its toll in ways we never anticipated, not even with family tendencies to point out the possibilities.  We see each other suffering, often in silence, and begin to absorb the other’s frustrations until we explode from our own sense that “no one cares about me or what I’m going through”. Sometimes it takes months, often years, for the most afflicted spouse to recognize what they are putting the other through, that they are in fact shortening that person’s lifespan by their own demands. This is true even when the caring is deep and real and lovingly provided.

 

By this time damage to the marriage may have happened, but going forward in Faith, things can be turned around. Daily, weekly, and monthly respite (of different lengths of time) for the caregiver is paramount in holding the silver threads of the marriage together, so that one half will not succumb to burnout and be unable to help any more. 

 

A critical component of a happy marriage is shared religious beliefs, especially in a world that has largely turned away from God.  A shared belief of atheism is always possible but a very sad choice when so much more comfort and strength is available to believers.  With God as an equal partner in a marriage, the couple is never left alone for long, as they remember to read holy writ and pray for themselves and for others. The prayer can be private or together.

 

No, love is not enough, but patience, sharing, compassion and religious commitment will keep romance alive, no matter how rocky the way has been.