Chemistry Lessons: When 'for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health' are more than just words

Sue's parents, Mike and Helen, met and fell in love during The Great Depression.  When their relationship began, money was so scarce that something as simple as a birthday or Valentine's Day card seemed like a decadent luxury. The first anniversary card Mike bought for Helen was kept until the following year when she gave it back to him. The year after that, Mike returned the same card to Helen. What began as a means to save literal pennies, became an endearing tradition for the nearly 70 years of their marriage. They continued to exchange the card until Mike died a few years ago. "My father never stopped letting people know how my mom was special," Sue said nodding her head gently. "That set the expectation for what a marriage is supposed to be for me."

 

Sue told me that story in the bright and sunny workshop her husband, Jim, made for her. The walls neatly displayed tools of her trade as a bookbinder. For decades, libraries and universities throughout the Midwest would send her their aging books -- many dating back several centuries -- so that she could restore them with her blend of expert craftsmanship and love for the written word.

 

Jim rested in a nearby room, exhausted by rounds of chemotherapy. Several years ago, when Sue herself waged her own battle against cancer, he stood by her side as her caregiver. Their individual confrontations with cancer have served to connect them even more. The men in his family all died before they turned sixty. Jim is now 75 and, as Sue puts it in a sweet, quiet voice, "I've had him longer than I expected to."

 

They first met in 1965 when Sue and a girlfriend traveled through Europe. On a bus heading towards Naples, Sue and her friend were playing rummy when two American soldiers they noticed sitting at the back of the bus approached them. At the next bus stop, an American PX, Jim, bought an inexpensive Instamatic camera and he took a few photos of them for their remaining few hours together before they split ways.

 

Over the next two years, Jim wrote to Sue three times and she replied three times. It's worth underscoring that there were no other communications between them during those two years other than three letters each.

 

Sue, who lived in Nebraska, planned to go to Expo 67 in Montreal, the largest and most successful World's Fair ever.  Jim, who was now out of the army and living in Chicago, invited her to stop by on her way back so he could show her the pictures from the Instamatic two years before in Europe.

 

Sue agreed and they met on her way back to her parents' farm. Three days after she landed in Chicago, Jim proposed to her and she accepted. When they married, she was 21 years old and he was 26 years old. They've now been married nearly 50 years.

 

Mike and Helen were married for almost three-quarters of a century, Sue and Jim for half a century, and Sue's daughter has been married for more than 28 years.

 

So, what's their magical secret to not only a long marriage, but more importantly, to a happy marriage?

 

"Chemistry plays a big part," Sue said. "It's important to have good chemistry."
 

When speaking to successful couples, by that I mean: couples that are happily together and not just legally together. I've repeatedly thought that there is a random aspect to being happily married. Finding someone to marry isn't the trick, and neither is staying married. The real challenge, I've realized after meeting so many couples, is finding the person in which everything clicks into place. It's what a friend of mine calls, "finding someone who is the same kind of crazy."

 

Seeing how Sue and Jim spent less time together before getting engaged than it takes to binge watch half a season of Gilmore Girls, their chemistry works.

 

Finding someone with the right chemistry is important, obviously, but even with that person, there are do's and don'ts to help keep the relationship happy and healthy.

 

"It's important to be able to sit down and talk," said Sue.  Communication between a couple matters a great deal and both partners need to contribute to it. Jim, an engineer by training, isn't naturally effusive or chatty, but Sue, who loves the spoken word as much as the written word, can get him to open up to her. Because of their chemistry, she knows how to unlock his words. The key to this is that Sue understands how Jim works and has the patience to wait for his words to come.

 

"One thing I've picked up is to not start a sentence with 'Don't do...,'" advised Sue. "It puts people on the defensive."

 

The importance on how to handle disagreements has come up time and time again when I speak to happily married couples.  Even with Sue and Jim, a couple with obvious chemistry, knowing how to navigate conflicts was a hard won lesson, but one key to their successful marriage. This point has come up so often that I would easily rank it as a top tip for having a successful, happy, and long-lived marriage: learn how to handle conflict.

This next point is one I've often thought about and one that Sue and Jim, unfortunately, have experienced is: It's important to marry someone that you can imagine taking care of you if you're seriously sick, and that you can see, yourself, taking care of when they're ill.

 

Sue and Jim met at the prime of their lives, both young and strong. But time eventually knocks us down physically, and sometimes getting back up again may take longer than expected.

 

It's easy to imagine loving someone when they are healthy, beautiful, and able to care for themselves. But can you see yourself loving and caring for that person when they are bedridden, needing hand-fed, cleaned, and changed? Can you see your partner doing the same for you? It's a difficult and unpleasant thought, but an important one. So important, that, 'in sickness and in health' makes it into most vows, but how many people actually consider what those words really mean in practice? Most of us understand the need of a retirement plan, but few give thought to everything else that will happen as we age. Ideally, the love we have will be at its strongest when we, ourselves, are at our weakest.

 

Sue and Jim, her parents, and her daughter and son-in-law represent more than 150 years of happy marriage. Despite struggling with poverty, cancer, and life's many other challenges, when the chemistry is right, so is everything else.

 

No one's future is certain, but Sue and Jim faced their future from the beginning with the unquestionable confidence that they will always be together. What started with a photograph on a bus in Italy turned into a lifetime of love, family, happiness, and for them, what a marriage is supposed to be.

 

*****

Lem Montero is a creative consultant specializing in copywriting, photography, and design. He and his business partner, Jennifer Bobelenyi, work on marketing and branding initiatives with many regional companies in the wedding industry, as well providing event planning and photography services to couples. Please visit www.lemmontero.com for more information.
 

Editor's Note: This is a picture of Sue and John, taken 50 years ago (August, 1967).

 

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