What Makes a Happy Marriage: Your Views

Thought for the Fortnight

Photo courtesy of Picryl

I want to start by wishing a warm welcome to all my new subscribers (and to old ones, of course). It has been a crazy week, where one small note went viral. I thought that going ‘viral’ only happened to other people and was quite taken aback. But the happy result is that we have a lot of new readers here.

I hope you will read with pleasure for some time to come and will join others in responding in the comments section (with anything you feel like saying). I don’t claim that we are a ‘community’ – an overused word if ever there was one – but I love the many comments readers offer.

Going Viral

Now, how did I have a note go viral on Substack?

It started because two separate writers posted something which reminded me of a story that I then retold as a comment on their respective posts. It then struck me that the story would itself make a good Note, so I revised it and published it as such.

It read:

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE?

My husband and I are 83 and 84, married nearly 62 years (yes, really). Our love is stronger than ever.

A friend asked me the above question years ago.

I gave a rather conventional answer about needing to compromise, not be too demanding etc. etc. When I went home and told my husband, he said “No, it is much simpler than that – I just find you very interesting!” That’s it in a nutshell – we both find each other very interesting.

We talk over meals, we talk lying in bed, we talk in the hallway – we just love to explore all sorts of things together.

Works for us!

I felt that this story, told against myself, also contained some wisdom that some people might enjoy reading. Indeed, I thought it might stimulate a response or two.

(For those readers not familiar with all the ins and outs of Substack, Notes is essentially the ‘social media’ side of this platform, where writers can post notices of their own articles, comments on others’ writing, ideas, complaints, cat pictures and so forth. Some people use it a lot and others more sparingly. I am in the latter category but give it a try from time to time.)

Well, I was unprepared for the roughly 7,400 ‘likes’, 230 comments and 340 ‘restacks’ (the equivalent of a retweet) that happened over the next days. Nearly two weeks later, the Note still continues to garner likes, comments and restacks, although much less frequently.

Views of marriage

But the result wasn’t just a head turned by all the attention. I was genuinely interested in the views about marriage that were thereby elicited. I decided to study them in detail.

I tried to print all the replies (28 pages) with the intention of analysing their content. This proved to be technically almost impossible (web pages are not so simple to print as Word documents) and after thirty plus minutes of frustration, I gave up. I had printed most of the comments but not all of them.

My printer seemed to be telling me that it was a silly plan. Which, of course, it was – in the sense that such replies are not representative of anything.

So, I took the more casual approach of checking over – with considerable care – what the comments I had managed to print said. Since I spent much of my professional life working with other people’s words from interviews and focus groups, this was familiar territory.

Here is what readers told me.¹

First, readers sent me (and my husband) a huge lot of good wishes, love, congratulations, blessings and the like. My great thanks, of course, for all these thoughts.

Many noted that they loved the very idea of my husband’s comment, especially its utter simplicity.

But secondly, I am happy to report that there are a lot of happy marriages out there. Both men and women wrote that they felt the same about their spouse of many years:

“YOU NAILED IT. Twenty years and counting, he is still the one I love to talk to. When our morning conversations are interrupted, my entire day feels off. We each have a unique take on things – he keeps my mind sharp.”

“THIS IS SO sweet I actually had to pause and smile in mid-scroll. I’m in a happy relationship and still — still! — this made me melt. The idea that the real secret isn’t some big strategy, but just finding each other endlessly interesting? that’s the kind of love I want to age into.

We talk a lot too — during meals, in bed, while brushing our teeth — and maybe that’s the real magic no one ever puts on a Hallmark card. Not fireworks, not drama, just curiosity.”

“IT CAME LATER for us, a second marriage, but our strengths are much the same. My wife stimulates me, challenges me, supports me, complements me in a way which means, we both agree, that just three years younger than you, Ann, we are living our best lives together.”

“WE HAVE ONLY clocked up 35 years. Give us time…My husband and I agree we are never bored in each other’s company. There’s no one else we’d rather be with and nowhere else we’d rather be.”

“AFTER TWENTY YEARS of marriage, my wife is still the most interesting person I know. We talk for hours, bounce ideas around, dream out loud, and explore life’s big and small questions together. And what continues to amaze me is that even when we’re not speaking, reading side by side or sharing a quiet meal, there’s still connection…”

“THAT’S THE ONLY piece of love advice my mum ever gave me – you have to love talking to each other. And we do.”

There were plenty more like this, but I can’t quote them all.

Some added other qualities they felt were important to a marriage, most frequently laughing together, with which I completely concur (see this post).

Other qualities mentioned were respect, communication, forgiveness and commitment to the marriage. One person wrote that a researcher had concluded the two words “yes, dear” were the secret of a good marriage. Another said “inertia and separate bathrooms.”

Much to my surprise, only one person spoke of the importance of “lots of sex”. Very significant in my view, even though it went unmentioned in the initial note.

Quite a few commented on how marriage “just gets better” over the years.

And many alluded to something I also feel is immensely important in the whole enterprise – luck! This plays a crucial role in so many aspects of life.

And thirdly, of course, there was the occasional dissent, although much less frequent than I expected. Several spoke about the lack of happiness in their marriage or, indeed, their ex-marriage. One woman wrote that she was essentially a skivvy: “maid, repairman, ATM…a means to get a task done”. And one man noted that “divorce is expensive.”

For some reason, the following bald statement made me laugh out loud, although my second reaction was enormous sadness for the writer. It is not so much dissent as denial that the discussion ever took place:

“No husband ever, and I mean ever in the history of the universe, ever said what this woman said her husband said.”

So what do I conclude?

This small unrepresentative exercise, taking place when the world seems to be in turmoil, gave me considerable hope. Whatever is happening on the great public stage, what seems to be happening in the privacy of our homes is good. Not everywhere, of course, but enough to make one smile.

And I want to end with this comment quoted above but worth repeating because it is so beautifully put (and it should be credited to

Vanilza Da Rosa

):

“We talk a lot too…and maybe that’s the real magic no one ever puts on a Hallmark card. Not fireworks, not drama, just curiosity.”

1. These comments, aside from the last one, are not attributed to their respective writers. Although they are all public, it seemed wrong to include them without asking permission and that added too much complexity. My apologies to anyone who is unhappy about this decision.

I say it every time, you all know that I love hearing from you. The ‘likes’ are definitely nice, but the odd sentence or paragraph is a real treat. What did this post make you feel? You are all much too clever to need questions to answer – I like to think that I stimulated some thoughts of whatever kind but I am also greedy to hear them.

Over to you.