Dear Joan,
I like your quotations. As the third one says, you must not be too far away, or too close. If you are too close and insist on always being together, always knowing everything about the lives of each other, and the thoughts, and even snoop into drawers and pockets of the other and read letters, then you may smother the marriage. Also the snooping into desk drawers and wallets and so on shows lack of trust.
On the other hand, the other must be trustworthy!
After nearly fifty years you finally find how to live together in happiness. Don't imagine that all those years were easy. There was a very hard period of time when Ben was under a lot of pressures and showed it at home by being short-tempered and withdrawn. It went on for quite a time. Even when I wanted to offer him tea or something to make him feel better he was still unpleasant in his response. He never hit me, of course. In fact, I told him on our honeymoon that if he *ever* hit me, he *had* a wife." Had is in the past tense, because that was where I would be. In his past. Anyway, thankfully Ben isn't the kind of man to hit a woman. Although I have never seen anyone become so frighteningly angry as I have seen him twice. When a gentle man like him becomes full of wrath then it is a sight to behold. Fortunately, he was not angry at anyone in our family. Anyway, at the time when he was so difficult I nearly left him for somebody else. Thankfully, I didn't!
We have been through a lot together in our fifty years. How could it be otherwise? Once I threw plates at him. I knew they weren't breakable, but I wanted to shock him. He was very shocked! That was in the first few years of marriage once when we were packing to move.
We had some extremely difficult times for the six months after we were married. In fact it became so bad in so many ways that people who knew us then used to speak of all the things that happened even years later, with something like awe.For the first six months of marriage we didn't even have a sharp word together. This was because I could see in his eyes that he couldn't take any sharpness. There would have been such pain in them. I could see that. After that, I knew that since we had been able to go through all that terrible time without even a sharp word, that nothing could break us apart. So you can imagine how difficult it was later when he was under that pressure that he didn't share with me, so I couldn't understand why he had changed into such a nasty and unreachable man.
When we had arguments (which was quite often, after the six months of course), because we were often under severe money and health troubles, then I used sometimes to feel like laughing while we were in the middle of a "fight". But I always suppressed the feeling. For years I suppressed it. I thought it would be ridiculous just to laugh in the middle of a fierce verbal battle. One day I finally laughed right at the hottest point. It just seemed so silly again, all of a sudden. He was shocked! He stared at me. Then he started to laugh too, and suddenly we were hugging and laughing together and the fierce verbal fight just melted away. After that, when I felt like laughing in the middle of an argument I laughed and it always ended up that we both laughed at ourselves. I wished I had let myself laugh from the beginning when I felt that way, but it just didn't seem to be proper, or to fit.
As you get older and older you see the same older appearance and changes in your beloved and they make your heart very tender. YOu begin to cherish and take tender care of the beloved one. Ben does this for me, and I do it toward him. The love we have now is much sweeter than the love we had at any time except our courtship and honeymoon and very early marriage days.
I think about "make your home a haven of rest and peace." and "live like two birds in one nest", also,that "your door should be open to friends and strangers alike," and "never hurt another heart," and so we have had many wonderful people here of all kinds. Friends and strangers alike have been in our home and people of many backgrounds, colours, opinions, ages. We designed our house so that it would work well for us, and helped physically to build it. We deliberately did not make it look impressive and we aren't particularly interested in having what our neighbours do. We have enough, and we're content. There have been so many great occasions and hospitality here, and prayers and wonderful readings, that I think the walls are permeated with some of the spirit of all the people who have ever been here. So our home has a good and helpful atmosphere. I love colour, so I always try to make it beautiful, without making it luxurious or fashionable. I prefer it to have our own style, and so does Ben. We made our gardens (landscaping) areound the house according to how the land was, and we have a little aspen grove at one side which is my forest, and a couple of lines of supports for grapes which are the vineyard. We have the meadow where creatures can live and find things to eat. That's at the back, and an apricot tree and some rhubarb, and a sort of roadway with two lamp standards, and some stairs going up that are right next to the huge Douglas fir by the front windows. It is a home that helps us to be happy, and our happiness and life here help to make the home.
So I hope that you may have found out some things that will help you from this narrative. That marriages go through their crises and if you ever had a real and genuine friendship, you can bring it back to a love affair and friendship again, even if things get very bad. Always talk to each other. Especially men need to learn how to communicate, and how to consult with their wives. How to be loving partners, and not one who is greater and one who is lesser.
So for now that's all I have to say except this, which I've told you all before:there is nothing sweeter than a very long marriage that has been worked for, and has been safely brought through all the difficult periods successfully. Of course, both partners need to be kind, loving and just people. If you marry someone whose character you don't know, you could make a bad mistake. You might "buy a pig in a poke!" ;->
Affectionately, Mary
