I get weepy every time I read the anniversary 
announcements in our community newspaper. You know the kind: Muriel and Melvin James married sixty years invite you to join them in their celebration of marriage.
I also love reading romantic stories from the post-WWII era. Stories of men and women who met after the war, were married three weeks later, and still light up when the other person walks into the room—even after all these years.
Today we would think a person is crazy to marry after only knowing someone for three weeks. Personally I think the difference is not the length of engagement, but the depth of commitment. If you talk to these long-married couples (as I have through interviewing veterans for my WWII novels), you discover they faced many of the same situations that break up couples today: financial problems, disagreements, incompatibility, challenges of raising a family and, yes, just plain unhappiness. Yet their commitment continued. Through the ins and outs, divorce wasn’t an option. In their minds, there was no easy way out. Instead of running away, they pushed through.
Have you asked for advice from seasoned married couples about commitment?
© Tricia Goyer author of Generation NeXt Marriage
http://triciagoyer.com/nonfiction.html#GenerationNextMarriage
Aww, I love those things in the newspaper, too. Read them every Sunday, and look for interesting obits sometimes in the week…. :} The WW2 ones, that is…
Loved this post. I’m not married, but would love to be someday.
Yes, I love watching those announcements in newspapers! My husband’s grandparents have been married over 50 years. They married shortly after he came back home from serving in the Korean War.
My grandfather served in WWII. I just had the opportunity to go over his old paperwork (he was a 1st Lieutenant and in the Air Corps in the Pacific so there’s a lot). Although he married twice during the war, neither of his marriages ended up successful…really one sad and terrible circumstance after another. It was fun going through all his old war paperwork though.
My husband and I had our first date Feb 2 were engaged in March and married June 1. We had been together for just under four months total. We’ve been married for almost nine years now. It hasn’t always been easy, and neither of us is perfect by any means, but as we work at our marriage together it has felt perfectly inspired.
Until he leaves the toilet seat up again.