Marriage of a lifetime?

I could not shake off one thought that my client had left behind when he attended my office early this week. 

He came in to defend his wife’s application to divorce him. And at one point of our exchange, he looked at me and asked, “Mike, do you know how long we have been married?” 

As I scanned his papers for the marriage certificate, he said, “37 years. I am married for 37 long years.“

He then asked about my marriage, and I said that next January, it will be 20. He smiled and said, “That’s about half of mine, Mike. I hope all’s well at your end.”

After he left, I recalled our discussion and the many things he did right in his marital journey. 

He married the girl of his dream. He had a wonderful celebration of that union. He did well in his career. He provided well for his family. They have three children, now all grown up, with careers of their own. 

Of course, he told me that there were many bumps on the road. Like normal couples, they argued too. But they were not marriage threatening ones. 

In fact, they were the expected give and take of couples living together. But they made up after that. He said the calm came just as fast as the storm waned. 

Alas, as I left for my short weekend getaway at Bintan, I thought long and hard about my client’s marriage. Mind you, it was a long 37 years as compared to my coming 20 years. What went wrong? 

I mean, along the way, what caused the marital threads at the seams to come undone, unraveled? And at one sharp bend of my thoughts, I caught myself asking, “Will I take the same road he took? Shouldn’t the number of years add up? Where did all the 37 years go?”

It was at this time that my wife’s parents came to mind. As I sat by the balcony, over-looking the sea, in an overcast Sunday morning, for it has been raining since Friday, I thought about comparing apples with, well, apples. 

A few years ago, we celebrated Anna’s parents’ ruby anniversary, that is, a marriage of 40 years. And in a few years’ time, her parents will be celebrating their golden anniversary. 

They too have three children just like my client. Their children are all married with children of their own. Their marriage have gone through many trials too, including the passing of their eldest son. Joel left behind his wife and two young boys. 

But, the years, if not decades, took little from what they have jointly put in. If a tapestry best describes their union, then I would like to believe that despite its messy underside, they have never lost sight of the embroidery on the canvass. 

You can say that they have kept their focus on the eye of the needle, and together, each thread they sewed as each year passes by only adds to even more depth and beauty to the tapestry’s image. 

That is a marriage that has stood the test of time, and has grown stronger amidst all times, whether good or bad. For even good times can make the heart wanders as much as bad times makes it flounder.

So, gathering my reflection this wet Sunday morning, I have learned that each of us is responsible for the marital journey we take. We reap what we sow. Or, in this case, we keep what we sew. 

And I am not here to do a post-mortem on my client’s marriage as it is just too complex for me. A journey of 37 years has its own story to unravel, and the threads take time to undo for the complete picture to emerge. 

Likewise, a journey of close to 50 years has its own story to tell. And for my parents-in-law, theirs is a picture that speaks for itself. 

More importantly, I trust that you can never tell how strong a marriage is by the number of years together. Ultimately, it is how each year is lived, how each trial is overcome, and how each promise is kept, that makes for an enduring marriage. 

In other words, it is not the years that makes a marriage, but how the couple make it counts that matters in the end.