In September of 2014, my husband and I celebrated twenty-five years of marriage. Our two oldest daughters put together an evening of remembering.
Pictures. Songs. Friends. Children. Grandchildren. Parents.
…we, my husband and I, are one less parent now. Jay’s dad passed away a a year ago on a misty October morning surrounded by the family he started nearly fifty years ago. And we were all there. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren. A lot happens in fifty years.
Time goes by fast, doesn’t it? Something about December turning to January reminds us all that time is passing. On Christmas morning, I watched as my husband unwrapped his present from Mom—a watch that belonged to his dad. He spent the rest of evening cleaning and polishing it—and remembering.
For forty-nine years, dad stayed faithfully married to mom. My grandparents were married nearly sixty years. I can still see grandpa chasing grandma around the kitchen. Sadly, these kinds of marriages are fast becoming the “exception” and not the rule.
This generation struggles to do what Jay’s parents and my grandparents did—but somehow, we need to figure it out.
Times are surely not harder now than they were then. My grandparents struggled through infertility, the depression, loss and heartbreak. What set them apart? Commitment. Sexual fidelity. Longing and vision—a longing to create a legacy of love and a vision for how to get that done.
I want that longing in my own marriage. I want that vision. When we had three twenty-four-hour days right.in.a.row to just “be,” over our anniversary, I made a list of things that I believe have helped to get us to the twenty-five year mark. By God’s grace, we’ll make it to 50 beautiful years. That year will be beautiful. It will be 2039. And it will be here before we know it.
Good marriages don’t just happen. They’re built, nurtured and protected. They start with love and longing and make the distance through dedication and sticky resolve.
You’ve got what it takes. Be committed.
Twenty-five Ways to Stay Married for Twenty-Five Years
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Take your vows seriously
We say our vows and kiss and people clap—but I wonder… do we know what we’re doing when we say “I do?” Probably not. A vow is meant to be forever… until death do us part. It better be serious if we even consider breaking a covenant like that. There are deal breakers, I get that–but “I’m just not happy” should not be one of them.
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Expect adversity
The battle lines were drawn the day we said “For better or worse.” Us against whatever may come. Expect the “worse” and hang on to the “better” when it comes.
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Be the best reason to come home
I want my husband to think of me as the best reason to get off work early. I want him to know that a warm house and the president of his fan club is waiting for him. A respite. A warm embrace. A bowl of cereal or filet mignon is all the same when it’s served with love, grace and affection.
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Date each other
Why do we stop doing this? Men: it’s not that hard to get a card for your wife or leave her a little note on the bathroom mirror. Wives still want to be asked out—husbands still want to know their wives desire them.
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Laugh
I have to force myself to laugh when money is tight and babies are crying and teenagers are demanding; but the reward is worth it. Life is hard. Laugh at the rain.
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Dream together
We start out dreaming—and when the dreams die, a little piece of ourselves die with it. Don’t stop dreaming. Create new dreams, set new goals. Begin again, together.
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Don’t play emotional games
Enough said. Less Jersey Shore, ladies.
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Be second
What would happen if we made the happiness of our spouse … first? A lot less divorces, I imagine.
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Try new things
A few years ago, we became foodies—together. #truestory
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Work it out
Look each other in the eyes and say the hard thing—with love. Work it out. Don’t take ANY advice from Washington. Compromise is essential in every successful relationship.
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Let it go
“Frozen” is on to something. Just don’t slam the door as you turn away. Don’t hang on to hurt. Let it go. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Bitterness makes you the prisoner. Let it go.
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Chase him around the bedroom
Hey. After 25 years, we’re realizing we are not going to stop the clock. Don’t waste time playing hard to get. NO REGRETS.
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Love your own body
After seven children, my body looks like something out of a National Geographic magazine. That’s okay. My husband wants me to love my body—so that I can love him without embarrassment or shame. Those are our stretchmarks… his and mine. So I own them. They’re badges of honor… and reminders of a love we share and life well-lived.
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Eat together
As often as you can. The dinner hour is precious time to connect. Leave time for candles—even if you’re serving cold cereal.
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Protect your time
Gardens that are not tended to die. Gardeners make time to garden. Give your marriage the time it needs and watch it flourish.
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Compliment each other
Let me help you:
“I love the way you look in that color.”
“You look smokin’ hot today!”
“Baby, you are gonna turn a lot of heads today. Mine first.” -
Don’t withhold sex from your spouse
Pat Benetar said it best: “Stop using sex as a weapon!” We were too young to understand that song when we first heard it but there comes a time when we figure it out.
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Have babies
You know how I feel about that. Yes. They’re all ours. They’ve made our lives richer and our days louder. Share the load and grow.
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Explore together
Why do we stop exploring? The same reason we stop dreaming. My grandparents were always up for an adventure—and we are, too.
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See the bright side
Harder than it sounds when life knocks the breath out of you. Try.
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Don’t give up
Too many marriages end because they give up just a day before the answer comes. If couples can survive the holocaust and the Great Depression, we can surely make it through financial setbacks, disappointing outcomes and bad days. I’d say my husband and I have made it through entire bad years. Not fun, but keep your eyes on what’s to come. Grandbabies are coming. Better days are coming. Don’t give up.
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Tell the truth
Even when it hurts. Trust is not easily rebuilt.
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Forgive each other
Seventy times seven.
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Do things that make you both happy
When we were younger, we loved to go garage-saleing on Saturday mornings. Now, we like to sit in our bedroom with a cup of coffee on Saturday mornings and hope the kids sleep in just long enough for us to drink it while it’s hot. It makes us happy.
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Be faithful
Your vows include fidelity. Nothing drains the life out of a marriage faster than adultery. (I put porn in that category.Women who share their husbands with the ghosts of other women are broken in a hundred different ways.) Save your bodies, all of your lives, only for each other.The culture has lied to you. It’s not “just sex.” It’s more than that. It’s the embodiment of all your hope, your trust, your deepest giving—in a sacred, beautiful gift.
“To have and to hold.”
Be faithful. Marriage is a beautiful, gut-wrenching, free-falling, faith-building adventure—and it’s worth it.
Heidi St. John
I love this! Thanks Hedi for posting this.
You’re welcome 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Heidi,
What a great article you have written. We are bombarded with so many foolish opposite opinions these days. Thanks for sharing great truth.
My wife and I are on the journey and will hit 27 years this year.
Thanks again,
David
27! Congratulations, David! It’s great to hear from a happy husband over here at TBM! Blessings on your journey—it’s a journey worth taking!
I really love all 25 points, they are great. I must say though, that telling women who “allow” their husbands to look at porn are “broken in a hundred different ways”, is not only insulting it is so incredibly mean! Wow, what a harsh judgment.
Hi Gienna, thanks for stopping by. It would appear that we disagree on how incredibly damaging porn is to women in general and to marriage in-particular. To me, the insult is the porn itself, and I see nothing mean or insulting about saying that women who live with the ghosts of this kind of thing are “broken.” As a woman who travels and speaks to thousands of other women regularly, I can tell you for a fact: this is the truth. Porn is bad for everyone. Period. I think you’ve camped on the word “allow” (though I don’t believe I wrote it) instead of thinking about the damage porn inflicts. I don’t mean “allow” as in the woman controls her husband, and treats him like a child; I mean it in the sense that we as wives should not sit idly by and allow anything as insidious as pornography enter the marriage.
Yes, women who live with this are broken, but sometimes we do the best we can and our husbands still make choices we hate. So we lean in to Jesus and ask Him to love us. Pray for those in this place. It is a hard place, and I’ve been married over 25 years. It doesn’t get easier.
You have my prayers, Kathy. It is a hard place.
Thank you for pointing this out Heidi. It does cause horrible damage…horrible.
I’ve seen it too many times, and wish more was being written/spoken on the topic. Thanks for being real, Carol.
I really enjoyed this article. I’ve been married for almost 18 years to a man who is addicted to porn. I love him so much, but it is horrible, and sometimes I don’t know how much longer I can bear it. Continuous cycles of trying to stop and then going back to it have left me utterly broken. I know our marriage could be so much more than it is if the porn were not a part of it.
Jennifer, thank you for being so honest. I know there are many, many women who can relate to you. You’re right, it leaves a marriage struggling. Do you have help or support in your area? ((hugs)) heidi
Great post! My husband and I celebrated 25 years August 31st. 🙂
Congratulations!
Beautiful!
Welcome, Maria!
My husband and I just celebrated 12 years yesterday! Twelve years, 4 moves, 2 children and adopting 1, and we’re crazy about each other…as I listen to him snoring at the other end of the house right now, I realize how blessed we are.
*love* is beautiful, even when snoring! Thanks for stopping by, Michele!
Amen! This list is great! Thank you!
Thank you, Emily! Welcome to the blog! 🙂
My dearest friend,
Thanks for posting this reminder. You and Jay have been in my life since the beginning of my journey with Christ and have truly been mentors to me since then. I can attest to many of the points you presented above as being a middle aged lady when I married presented challenges that I could have never seen coming. The most important one for me is “Don’t Give up”… Bradley and I have never,never given up on each other and even after almost 10 years, we have to be reminded sometimes of what our vows were all about.
” A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other”.
I love my husband to the moon and back and you and Jay have been an inspiration to us for many years…..
It IS so worth it.
Judy—your story is a powerful one and a testimony to God’s faithfulness! Much love to you, dear friend!
Thank you, Heidi
Thank you for reading, Annie!
And don’t bad mouth your husband to your friends. Yes, you will be frustrated with him at times but one can always find something good to say. Those times where women get together and bash their husbands are so bad for a marriage. Whenever women started that, I clammed up. When I got home I always told my man I was so glad I was married to MY husband and not any of theirs! Treat them with respect and they will love you for it!
“Treat them with respect and they will love you for it!” Great advice, Amy!
The first 25years of my marriage were celebrated with joy. After that my husband began to change and our marriage is a disaster at 50 years. The Lord is my husband and my defender. But there are days when I think I can’t go through one more day of rejection and lonlines. All my expectations are on The Lord.
Sharon, I’m so sorry. I have also learned that God is a defender and a restorer. He works best in dark places. Don’t give up.
The same here, Sharon. After 45 yrs., it is not easy to love my husband when there is no closeness in our relationship. Without God & my good Christian friends, I would have probably given up.But I know that only Christ can change him, & I pray about it every day.
Heidi had a lot of good points, though, in her summary.
Should have been FORTY- FIVE yrs.
Very wise words. Your grandparents sound like mine. If grandpa would have lived they would have been married 65 years. My husband and I have his parents and grandparents to look up to for strong Godly marriages. Our first 15 years has had some worse times but we took our vows seriously that day. I love reading your writings! Thank you!
A few years ago my girlfriend gave me an amazing piece of advice. Your vow is not just to the person you married. It is to God too. You are promising to your spouse that you are “I do(ing)” with and to God. You’re promising God you will do all this for the other person. He gave you this person. They are broken, imperfect, need loads of love attention and affection. You alone can not fill this vow. She said this helped her follow through in her marriage. She was sometimes ready to give up, leave, throw him out, you name it. Then she would remember she promised God she would love her husband. God never gives up on us and that would encourage her to continue to forgive, let go, and not give up.
Beautiful, Juliet. Thank you for sharing. Marriage is a covenant relationship—the only of it’s kind on this earth. Vows, as part of that covenant then, are sacred and should be honored. I loved your friend’s perspective.
enjoyed your insights i have just reached the 46 year mark who would have thought? As the romance changes, i have found that asking my husband to change is unfair looking at yourself is difficult, but being honest with yourself is the first move toward a better relationship: what am i doing to create the environment where …. is acceptable/ am i asking him/her to change without changing also? marriage is a partnership each person must change to grow When I have made changes for myself and us as a team, he/she must look at the change and make decisions as to whether or not this is a good thing. if the other refuses, then the commitment must be questioned and worked on. pointing fingers only causes bitterness. become who you want to be first
Great advice, Linda. Wow. 46 years. Congratulations!
Wise words of wisdom…interesting, educative, encouraging and a road map for the younger couple emulate.
nice write up. keep up keeping up.
Wishing you many more blissful years ahead.
Thank you Clinton! I appreciate your kind words. You’ve encouraged me today!
This is great, I got married on August 2nd 2014 so I am a new to this marriage thing, lol. But this is very thought provoking coming from a home where after 23 years of marriage my parents divorced. It was very hard for me to even think of marriage as an opption, as I put my whole self in what I do and strive not to fail. But God placed a wonderful man in my life 3 years ago and I said yes. It is so great to hear about couples truely keeping their vows, it gives me hope that It can be done. Thank you for the encouragement today!
Hi Alyssa! You’re a newly-wed! Congratulations! My parents divorced after 23 years of marriage and I know the pain divorce inflicts on children. You CAN do this! Keep your eyes on the future and sow wisely. The investment you’re making will be worth it!
Number 13.??? YES!!!!! We were married 15 years on Monday. Yes, there have been hard moments, but you fix what’s not working, and keep going, because love is a decision, not an emotion. Thank you for continually encouraging so many. May the Lord continue to bless you and yours.
Thank you Caroline! You make England seem not so very far away. 🙂
Reading posts like this is always so refreshing and encouraging to me, because you’re absolutely right, the culture has lied to us about so many things for so long, that we actually start to believe we’re wrong for not doing them! I especially agree with the no-porn statement. Sadly, far too many people find that behavior acceptable and even ‘normal’ in marriages (or in general, but that’s an entirely different topic), and completely ignore how degrading and separating it truly is. I feel that porn is just another of the enemy’s many tools to attack and destroy one of God’s most precious gifts to us: marriage. I believe that more people need to recognize such things as poisonous and damaging, and need to stand up and speak out against them. Thank you for having courage to do that. God bless you and your marriage!
Thank you Jeana! Keep speaking truth to your friends and loving your husband! I appreciate you stopping by the blog!
My wife and I are approaching 25 years in January and every point hits on the success of our marriage. I
suspect, though, you may have written this for a more secular audience as I see a couple of very important things missing: keep God at the center of your marriage, pray for and with each other daily, read scripture together, and serve together. Thank you, though, for an otherwise spot-on and helpful post!
Absolutely 🙂 Thanks, Rick!