I have to say that I think the Godess is really onto something here. I think as a nation we are a group of "coveters". we covet. that’s what we do. we want we consume we covet. and the notion of the ideal marriage is just one more thing for us to want. We’ve idealized it in our psyches through every possible way we could. literature, television, movies, songs… But in reality. I’m 45 years old and I’ve only known a handful of people in forever marrirages. and only about 1/4 of those forever marriages were any kind of relationship i would want! and out of those 1/4 marriages that were forever and looked good to me…. they weren’t anything like the ones you see on tv or read about in books. one couple was/is a swinger couple. one couple never vacationed together. one couple never vacationed without each other in 35 years.

What I hate the most about this idealization we’ve got going is how it hurts the women who don’t have it. I have a good friend in her forties whose beautiful, smart, sexy… unmarried and never has been married. she constantly thinks there’s something wrong with her because of it. no matter how hard she fights to be okay. no matter how full her life is or how loved she is by her friends and family. she feels like she did something wrong.

I’m with Joan on this subject.  We toss everything into the garbage that we don’t value because we know that we can just get another.  There is very little in our culture these days that promotes a message that to repair and maintain is of greater value than just getting something "better."  It’s not that our culture doesn’t have the talent or means to provide something of lasting value, it’s that  advertising rules and therefore the predominant message is one of replacement, replacement, replacement. 

I had a microwave oven that needed a minor repair.  No one had the replacement part.  I could order a part from overseas where other countries apparently value the idea of repair rather than pitching into a landfill.  Because I am a tenacious and enterprising person I persevered and finally found a part which I then had to modify with tools that I happened to own.  There were times when I just wanted to send the oven to the dump because it took so much time and effort to get the repair made.  

As a culture we reflect what we value.  If we don’t value marriage, then we don’t stick with it.  In my own life after 25 years of marriage my husband bailed out because it was no longer useful to him.  He has replaced me with lots of wonderful "stuff" and is out from under the bother of having to make an effort.  He throws out whatever he doesn’t like anymore while I am the sort who will make the effort to fix and repair until it’s no longer feasible.  It’s what I value.  When this man had less money he was more interested in making an effort to maintain and repair and to make an effort.  I don’t miss him because we don’t share the same values any longer.

When our culture shifts in the direction of valuing repairs and maintainance and making an effort, we will cease to throw out so much of what doesn’t gratify us so easily.  We will then become less shallow people.  Having an economic downturn is not such a terrible thing in some respects and while some people will not behave well under the stress of their lives, others will come to see the value of living more creatively and sharing the challenges these times may offer.  

When I was in high school I swore I would never marry - or if I did it would be later in life.  I did, in fact, marry young and we have been married for eons!  I guess you can’t predict when you will meet the right person.  I really got lucky in that regard.  Thank goodness, because I think changing relationships as often as some people I know would be exhausting for me.  My husband and I are, and always have been, very different people.  But it works for us. 

Someone wrote… you In life, you only get out of it what you put into it … and that goes for work or pleasure or love.  If that were true there would be more long marriages such as yours.  You are lucky, but in the real world everyone does not have the same outcome, that does not mean that they didn’t work hard, it just does not happen for everyone!