Her husband, Gene, bought countless tickets to musical shows because she loved them, even though he would rather be golfing. The East Orlando couple was married less than a year after they met in a small Miami church.
They knew very little about one another but expected one thing — eternity. Couples all over the nation were on their best behavior on Valentine’s Day last Thursday. Today, however, is likely a different tale in most households — one filled with messy husbands leaving the toilet seat up and nagging wives complaining about hyperactive children.
To prepare East Orlando for when the sweet memories of the year’s most romantic day fade, the Goldenrod Chamber of Commerce on Valentine’s Day welcomed Sheryl Kurland, author of Everlasting Matrimony — Pearls of Wisdom from Couples Married 50 Years or More.
Kurland, whose background is in writing, not marriage counseling, interviewed 75 couples nationwide, compiling their notes about what makes a marriage works. Several thousand copies of the book were sold since she self-published it three years ago.
She also speaks to groups like the chamber, including military wives organizations. In a time when more than 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, the most common question Kurland hears is: “Is it possible to have a longlasting relationship in today’s society.”
The answer Kurland found in her research is “yes.” The most common denominator among all of the couples is what she calls the “D” word—determination. “When things go wrong, many couples today turn to a different ‘D’ word —divorce. These couples never expected things to be rosy all of the time and they never let divorce be a choice,” she said.
Pat Colley agreed. She said the thought of splitting up has never crossed their minds, no matter how rocky the road. “She wouldn’t let me,” Gene said. “But seriously, there is no commitment with couples these days. When we were growing up, divorce was unheard of. If we were getting married today, I do not think we would do anything differently.
Our marriage would last because we know what is right.” Pat added, “People get married with the idea that if they do not like it or if they get mad, they get divorced. There is a lot of give and take where not everyone can have their way. You make allowances for each other’s likes and dislikes.”
From the 75 interviews, Kurland
compiled nuggets of advice and wisdom,
including three common ways
many couples avoided potentially damaging
arguments.
• Take a 30-minute time-out from one
another and then regroup to discuss why
the fight occurred in the first place.
• Learn what to expect. For instance, if
a husband habitually leaves the cap off
the toothpaste and a wife continually
leaves her wet towel on the floor, accept it
and move on.
• Decide whether an argument will be
important a week later. If not, drop it.
“Arguments that seem small can
mount over time.
I think couples who divorce just emotionally checked out because with most of these couples married 50 years plus, there were times when they walked away but they never thought of giving up,” Kurland said. “Many times I have heard, ‘I never wanted a divorce. I just wanted to kill them.’ Meaning they got mad, but never hopeless.” Kurland interviewed couples from all faiths, backgrounds and ethnicities.
There were differences, but Kurland said it all boiled down to how devoted each couple was to staying in the marriage. Their will to go above and beyond, their attitude going into the marriage and the energy they decided to put into the relationship all played crucial roles in the marriage’s longevity. Kurland and her husband, Steve, have been married 18 years and share an 11- year-old daughter, Shelby.
She said gathering marriage advice from successful couples and learning from their success likely saved her years of marriage counseling. “Seniors today cannot walk very fast or hear very well, so they are often pushed aside in society. But they hold so much wisdom about how to get a marriage right,” she said. “Fifty years is a huge milestone in our society. This generation and this wisdom is leaving us.”
The book developed into a passion to show people “how to have a lasting relationship without years of psychotherapy.” She plans to condense the book into an easy-to-navigate handbook and write another interview-based book called 101 Marriage Traditions. Here she will collect unique traditions from couples across the country.
The purpose: “Everyone has family traditions, but not too many people have traditions they only share with their spouse,” Kurland said. So far, Kurland has collected 67 traditions. One example is a woman who collects corks from each bottle of wine she and her husband share, marking the date and where they were to preserve the memory.
Another man wrote that he gives his wife all of the folded potato chips in the bag because she loves them. He called each one a love note. “I want to give a voice to the successes instead of the Brittany Spears’ of the world. So far, no one has done that in a real way,” she said.
