Are Long, Happy Marriages Still Possible?

Marriage baffles me. Love, however, doesn’t.

I never wanted to get married. I never saw the point; we loved each other, that was enough for me. But I did, and despite being married for nearly nineteen years, I’m still not sure I’m any good at it.

Marriage was initially a practical tool to secure property rights, create family alliances, and to know the biological heirs. And it’s only been a few hundred years since marriage shifted from logic to love. But here we all are, still getting married.

I’m bemused when younger couples choose to get married; haven’t they seen enough grumpy older couples or the effects of divorce to put them off? I’m guessing it’s the same when you decide to have children; you think yours won’t be like those children. I do wonder if they’re really getting married for the long haul or the excitement of the event. Hen and stag dos, destination weddings, pre-wedding dinners, the dresses, the dance routines and months of solid social media content. What I’m really hoping, though, is that in this crazy world, they’ve learnt to grasp hold of the good stuff and never let it go.

I recently bumped into a friend who excitedly shared that her eldest daughter is marrying her boyfriend of four years. The wedding is next year; her daughter will be twenty-two when she gets married.

Twenty-two! They’ve been together four years already!

I’m here for love and commitment, but if she lives into her eighties, she could be married for sixty-plus years! Reaching her diamond anniversary, one of the rarest milestones and receiving a message from the King to say Well done you. I’m not sure if that’s even a goal anymore, let alone an achievable one. Is a long, happy marriage even possible in modern life?

Modern marriage is not easy. The expectation to build a life that looks good adds pressure to a marriage, the thing that can break the love. Buy a home. Get a good job to afford it. Make a family. Get a bigger home. Get a better job to afford it. Before you know it, your priorities have changed; you don’t see each other because you’re working hard to afford the home you never spend time in, and life is slowly sucked out of the love at every mortgage repayment.

The pressure cooker is turned on and the timer set to a lifetime.

If we do manage to stay together through our twenties, thirties and forties, are the fifties our biggest challenge?

Over the years, only two of my friends have got divorced, both within a few years of getting married. One realised he was a walking sperm donor, and the other, his wife’s fiery personality that he initially found so attractive, backfired and burnt him. However, this past month alone, I’ve found out that three couples are separating.

There are many reasons why couples divorce, and I doubt outsiders know the full truth of what broke the bond that once felt strong enough to declare till death do us part. But my friends’ most recent divorces all had a commonality: they were all in their mid-fifties and their youngest child was leaving for university. The infamous ‘grey divorce’ had struck. The realisation they could potentially be spending the remainder of their good years trapped in a dull marriage with someone they no longer knew or actually liked. Every unresolved pissed-off moment where they felt unappreciated, or unfairly treated, quietly eroded their friendship, love, and sexual chemistry.

A close friend faced this issue. She decided to divorce after realising the man she married was not the same man she was married to. She got ready to enjoy her freedom after years of mothering, dreaming of selling up and travelling the world. Whereas he dreamt of selling up to buy a small bungalow so he could slow down after working hard most of his life and potter in the garden.

My kids are fuming at the Baby Boomers and Gen Xs for making house prices unaffordable. But maybe we’ve helped them dodge a bullet by avoiding the pressures of a long mortgage or the original meaning dead pledge. Hopefully, they’ll completely miss out on the monotony of midlife, where one partner hides in the shed while the other redecorates the spare bedroom again because they’re bored.

As the years stack up, to avoid contempt and resentment stacking up too, should we renew our marriage licence like our driving licence? Each partner has a get-out-of-marriage-for-free card when it’s time for renewal. Similar to those awful marriage reality TV shows, where in the final moment, the couples are asked, “Will you stay married?”

I know life isn’t that simple, and we all have annoying things called emotions, but it might make us work harder at our relationships, worrying if our partner will say yes on the day or happily call it quits and skip off into the sunset to start over.

I recently shared a piece on my realisation that I possibly wasn’t such a good wife, and it was popular. The comments mainly centred around the expected roles within a marriage and who should or shouldn’t do what. I wonder how many of those readers were actually in long-term marriages and whether their comments were in hindsight, and they were sharing what they’d learned the hard way.

I am glad I got married. My husband’s surname is way nicer than my maiden name. I have no wise words on a modern marriage to share other than do life together on your terms, however that might look. Living separately, sleeping separately, holidaying separately, never marrying, not having children, never buying a home, maybe having an open relationship.

And if you’re lucky enough to find someone you like, not just love or find attractive, be nice to them. Speak up when you’re disgruntled. And apologise… properly. I had to Google how, remember, I’m rubbish at marriage. The most important thing: make each other laugh often. Without humour, life together will be very dull.

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes on Tuesdays; I go on Fridays.

Henny Youngman

*I’d love to hear from younger generations and their thoughts on marriage. If you haven’t read it already, here’s the article I refer to: