Beating the Odds, 27th Anniversary

The ideal mate, wrote U.S. President John Adams in his diary, was willing to 'palliate faults and mistakes, to put the best construction upon words and actions, and to forgive injuries.'"

By today’s standards 27 years of anything is a long time. Many people are looking to retire by the time they hit 27 years on the job, most jobs last surprisingly less than 27 years, and somewhat less than one in three marriages survive for 27 years.

When you take the time to look at the statistics a successful marriage is pretty rare. Most marriages today last a solid 7 years, and most couples will realize their first divorce right about the time they reach 30.

Yikes—that is pretty scary.

So when I look back now at the past 27 years that Jackie and I have spent together it’s hard to figure out why our relationship has worked out. On the face of it, we should have been long divorced. I mean, why should our marriage survive in such a desert of divorces?

The statistics will just rock you. Take a look at these divorce percentage numbers:

Years Married	Divorce rate
5	18%
10	35%
15	48%
25	67%
35	80%
50	95%

To say the odds are stacked against you would be an understatement. Basically half of all marriages are over within 15 years. Some last a bit longer, but you have to think that a lot of those are of the “let’s stay together for the kids” type marriages. Where the relationship is shot, but both spouses “take one for the team” in order to provide their children with the appearance of a family.

In some ways, I suppose that could work. But children are much smarter than most parents know. They can sense when a marriage isn’t working and no matter how hard the husband and wife may try trouble is bound to follow.

Fortunately, Jackie and I have never had to deal with that kind of thing. But we can attribute our success so far on a couple things:

One: we understood early on that financial problems are generally short-lived so we agreed not to get caught up in any minor setbacks.

Two: we keep all matters in the open.

Three: we pull in the same direction.

In truth, it’s all about Jackie. I tend to be an ornery old male of the species and somehow she is willing to understand that and work around it. Probably our ability to talk to each other is what has gotten us this far. On the verge of being empty nesters, we’ve already passed that point of trying to figure out how to live together again. We have made a few weekend jaunts alone, and spent time doing this and that together.

To tell you the truth, it has been fun. The past 27 years have been dominated primarily by bringing up kids. For the most part, our lives have revolved around spending time, money, and energy on them. Soccer, baseball, football, wrestling—pretending the trips for AAU tournaments and other events were really vacations was almost a way of life.

But not anymore.

Now when we go off for the weekend, you can be sure we won’t be spending time on an athletic field somewhere. More than likely we will be on the beach or in the mountains. No kids to deal with, nothing but the two of us. Seems like old times—and I’m happy they’re back.

Happy Anniversary, Jackie, best decision I ever made.