Life in the Trenches

A couple of 28 year old young men are traveling the country meeting with couples that have been married 40 years or longer asking them the secret to their long and happy marriage.

They have found that these couples have gone through many of the same challenges and disappointments as divorced couples.....the difference? They stuck it out.

One woman was asked if she had ever considered divorce.....not divorce she answered...murder once or twice!

I love the following quote:

Love is a temporary madness.

It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.

That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.-
Captain Corelli's Mandolin

A counselor once told me that nearly all of her married clients experience times in the bottom of the trench....most of them at that point give up and move on to seemingly easier relationships. Those who stay in the trench together, digging through the sh*t come out the other side with a relationship deeper, richer and more committed than they ever thought possible.

Here's to digging....