Advice from a Successful Couple: Never Stop Dating

Unbeknownst to their two kids who were at school, Terri and Ron each took half a day off from work and snuck away to the beach.  While their children were learning state capitals and multiplication tables, Terri and Ron laughed as they walked along the lake holding hands. Twenty six years later, they’re still laughing together.

“Let me show you a picture of Ron,” Terri said to me as she picked up her iPhone. Her fingers flicked across the screen.

“Here he is,” she beamed as she handed me the phone. The photographed showed an obviously happy man sitting in a restaurant booth. While Terri’s smile was warm, Ron’s smile was infectious, even through the small screen. Though it was only a picture, I felt slightly uplifted. Terri’s eyes flickered with pride.

Terri and Ron met in March of 1986 became engaged in in April, and married in January of 1987. As an aside, I’ve met many people lately that have gotten engaged and married weeks after meeting who are still married decades later. When you meet the love of your life, they’ve all told me, why wait?

Terri knew Ron had her heart, but despite how mushy her new man made her feel, she realized certain things had to be articulated and agreed to for the marriage worked for them.

Terri offered many great points of advice for a couple going into and several are worth mentioning in future blog posts. For now, I will focus on the core of what I loved about Terri and Ron: almost three decades into their relationship, they are still dating each other.

“Children are transient,” Terri said. “They are with you for only a little while before they move out. One day, they’ll leave home and then you’re just left with each other. This is why date nights for us are so important – to keep that connection between us alive.”

From the beginning, they built date nights into their relationship especially when their now college aged children were little. Their date nights were often as simple as having coffee together, or as planned out as leaving on an overnight trip on their wedding anniversary. 

“We make sure to put each other first,” said Terri. “At a marriage conference at our church we learned to the order of the import things in our life is God, each other, and then the children.”

Terri and Ron do what many other long term couples find hard to do and that’s to not take each other for granted to the point where they stop trying to woo the other.  Like a young man trying to impress a beautiful young lady he just met, Ron will do whatever he can to charm Terri.

For example, he accidentally messed up a take-out order to Terri’s favorite restaurant. Instead of simply shrugging his shoulders and mumbling he’s was sorry, Ron drove sixty miles roundtrip to get Terri still warm donuts from her favorite bakery – and he bought enough donuts and coffee for her coworkers. Delivered with his genuine affection for her, the fresh donuts were just part of his lifelong commitment to “dating” Terri.
 
“Not a day goes by that we don’t touch each other in a tender way,” she nodded gently. “If you stop doing those small things, the marriage starts to fall apart.”

Once the ring slides on to your finger, the marriage begins, but the dating shouldn’t end. It would be easy to mistake Terri and Ron for a couple that just got together and were still in their euphoric, honeymoon phase. But that’s only true because 26 years ago, they made the commitment to put each other first and never take each other for granted. 

On any given weekend, it’s possible to find Terry and Ron driving down a highway, singing together as loudly as they can, with an overnight bag in the trunk, and no idea where they will stop for their overnight getaway.  Even if they don’t know where the highway will take them, they at least know they’re on that journey together.

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