Quitters Never Win

 

"44 years? Tell me your secret. Neither of my marriages lasted more than five years." That was a literal comment my husband and I heard when we casually mentioned that we were celebrating our 44th anniversary last week. And while there was a bit of humor in that exchange, it also was more than a bit sad because it was not the first time someone said something similar to that to us.

Way, way back in the day, when we had wedding showers at our little church, we would have a devotion. One of our go-to topics was for the circle of women to all contribute their best marriage advice to the bride-to-be. Social media commenting of the 80's I suppose. I will never forget one little old lady. One of the words of wisdom we would hear every time without fail was 'never go to bed angry.' This sweet little woman got her turn and looks at us and says, "Well, I don't know about never going to bed mad...in over 50 years I've done that many a time." (Insert shocked looks here.) "But what I will tell you, if you want to make it last is that you both can't quit on the same day."

That nugget of wisdom was gold. In many ways. It had layers of truth. First of all, don't quit. Just don't. Next, be prepared for the fact that you may want to. I've talked to young people so deeply in love that they truly believe that no one ever in the history of the world has ever felt the way they are feeling. Theirs is a unique love. Okay, maybe unique, but not groundbreaking special. They can't imagine ever feeling anything different from what they are feeling at this very moment. So, when they wake up one morning and feel, oh something less than what they are feeling on that glorious day, they begin to doubt that it is 'true love', or whatever romantic nonsense they bought into. We need to realize that feeling that 'this is not what I signed up for' are not indications that we should look for the Exit Sign.

This doesn't just apply to young people. We older people feel the very same thing. We go through phases of life, hard times, trials of life, changes. Love is deeper than hardship and turmoil. It stays and grows with tribulations. If I woke up one morning and said, "I can't do this anymore." and my husband said, "Well I can, and I will." we have a much better chance of surviving than if he looked at me and said, "Well, then I'm done too." 

Live is hard, relationships are hard. Someone has to stay in for the hard times. Don't quit on the same day and you have a better chance of someone asking you, "Wow, what's your secret?"