Why do some marriages last, when others don't?

Thirty two years ago, I said "I do". That's an inconceivably long time. How come we're still here?

J and me, l to r: very early 90s Tottenham, New York City Hall April 1993, Edinburgh 2023. Haven’t changed a bit :-/

I’ve been thinking a lot about long relationships lately, and what it takes to make them last. (Indeed, what it takes to want to make them last.) Partly because today (yesterday, for you) is our, J and mine’s, 32nd wedding anniversary. (I know. Holy shit etc etc. Apart from anything else, how did we even get this old?) Partly because of the recent avalanche of divorce memoirs, each one telling a valuable story about the ways in which relationships breakdown and how and when to move on. (Stand-outs, for me, include Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful and Leslie Jamison’s Splinters.) And partly because, earlier this week I reread Hourglass Dani Shapiro’s gorgeous memoir which is, by its very nature, at the other end of the spectrum. To be clear, though, Hourglass is not a book about how to stay at any cost. (We’re not talking Esther Perel here.) Far from it. But it is about what makes us keep at it.

Revolving around the notion of “time, memory and marriage”, or as the poet Wendell Berry, who Shapiro quotes, puts it “the troubles of duration” (how brilliant is that?), Hourglass is a clear-eyed, candid account of a marriage 18 years in as she looks back at the woman who said “I do” at the age of 35. Having done so before at 19 and 28. Neither of those marriages lasted – the first one for barely six months – so she sets about unpicking what made this one stay the course*.

How do you change alongside someone else without becoming subsumed by them or growing away? Conversely, how do you avoid being forced (or forcing them) into stasis? Is it possible to evolve as both us and I? How do you survive in the face of illness, disaster, deaths, fights big and little, redundancies, financial worries, etc etc. How do you stay together as a couple and individuals because you want to, not because you’ve run out of options.

Firstly, luck. Let’s not overlook that. To meet someone and recognise them and make a life with them – and to continue to want to – is nothing if not really bloody lucky. And, let me stress, it’s not for everyone. Very far from it. It is not the holy grail, whatever the fairytales would have us believe. (As I’ve said before, I know many many women who have left long-ish relationships in midlife, or want to, and who can blame them?)

And, in the same ballpark as luck, privilege. Staying together because you want to not because you have to is a privilege to end all privileges.

But there’s something else. It doesn’t matter where you come from (J and my backgrounds could hardly be more different) what matters, I think, is where you’re going (if you even have a clue) and the fact you both see the world with the same eyes. Dani Shapiro puts it more beautifully than I ever could, “most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing”. Whether that third thing is a child, a president, a line on the horizon, doesn’t really matter.

In her Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction shortlisted memoir, A Thousand Threads, Neneh Cherry describes first seeing her husband of 35 years, Cameron McVey at the airport in 1987 when they were both on their way to a modelling assignment in Japan, and thinking, “There you are”. I get that. It’s not the schmaltzy stuff of movies, it’s about recognition, seeing something in the other that you somehow already know. Or am I talking bollocks? Who knows.

Two years ago, on the cusp of our thirtieth wedding anniversary, back in the BS (before substack) days, when The Shift with Sam Baker had just a few hundred subscribers (hello you lovely people who formed the foundations on which The Shift is built. Thank you), rather than the 20,000+ who are here now, I wrote a piece about what those 30 years had taught me and what I know now that the 26-year-old who said “I do” in a dodgy French Connection dress in New York City Hall, definitely didn’t.

I thought I’d share that with you now:

This weekend, we’ll have been married thirty years. Now I’ve written that down I need to pause and take a moment.

Thirty blimmin years. 3-0.

Firstly, how did I get to live that long?

Secondly, how did anyone put up with me that long?

Thirdly, how?!

They’re such weird things, wedding anniversaries. Something and nothing. And not something we usually bother with at all TBH. They don’t change anything, after all. They’re nothing more than the passage of time. Landmarks acknowledged without much fuss. Our wedding anniversary, on April 2nd (we picked the date mainly because it would have been a source of far too much amusement for our friends and family if we’d married on April 1st). Our “getting together anniversary” on July 4th. Those dates never pass unnoticed, but there’s limited fanfare, fuss – or flowers – in either direction. Occasionally one of us will buy the other a card or a present but we rarely manage to do it both at the same time. Awkward!

Thirty, though. It’s a lot. Comfortably more than half my life. Five homes. Nine jobs (me). 19, I think, novels (Jon). Six books (me). Two cats. One step/son. One step/grand-daughter. 30 Christmases, 60 birthdays, countless illnesses, crises, bills, holidays. Takeaway curries must be well into five figures. I'm well aware there's more luck in that list than many people have in a lifetime.

Standing here now, as 56-year-old me, looking back at the 26-year-old who, the night before our wedding, dreamt she was marrying someone else, all the while walking up the aisle saying “but I can still live with Jon, right?!”, it’s a vast expanse of time. Whether you think time is linear, a flat road stretching into the distance in either direction, or a twisty coil, all piled up on itself, with each you happening simultaneously in parallel. (A daunting thought, all those fuck ups landing at the same time!) The days when we met, got together, decided it was a real thing, rearranged our lives, budged up to make room for each other, moved in, started to merge our few possessions and build a new life together seem as distant as watching Twin Peaks on an old black and white portable TV in Tottenham in that first flat (and not feeling like a weirdo). Yes, kids, that was really a thing.

I remember in those early rosy romantic days talking about growing old together. More than once. There’s a black and white picture you can easily find on Pinterest of a really old couple, arms wrapped around each other, taken from behind. (See foot of this newsletter.) That was the dream. Still is. We’re not exactly there yet, but it’s creeping alarmingly closer. All being well. If we’re lucky.

But enough with the schmaltz!

Because if there’s one thing I don’t think anyone takes into account when they’re starting out is the effort it takes to maintain a long term relationship. Let’s be honest, being married for three decades, whilst an achievement, is no cakewalk. Holding down a long-term relationship, nurturing it, hopefully seeing it thrive, is bloody hard work on both sides. It’s a slog-luck-mutual consideration sandwich which at any point could lose one of its fillings and slither soggily to the ground. And those are just the factors you caninfluence. Throw in illness, redundancy, grief, financial upheaval, on a personal level, and so much more on a global one, it’s a miracle anyone holds it together at all.

It’s endlessly surprising to me that we did. So here’s what the last thirty years have taught me about give and take…

1. It helps massively if you each believe you’re the lucky one. If, on the other hand, you’re pretty certain your partner has lucked out and always have one eye out for a better model, you probably don’t need me to tell you you’ve got a problem.

2. Loads has been written about the five love languages. You might think it’s all bollocks (and you might well be right), but personally I reckon there’s something in it. I’ve got a friend, now divorced, who once told me that she just wanted her husband to give her a hug, while he showed his affection by mowing the lawn. Conversely, another friend, also now divorced, said she just wished her ex would pull his weight without asking her 'what she needed him to do' first, while he kept giving her unwanted cuddles. Not only did they not speak the same languages, they didn’t recognise each other's. Perhaps they should have swapped. (This has just made me remember another friend whose husband bought her a phonecharger for their wedding anniversary. She was furious and distraught in equal measure. He was also gutted. He'd spotted a need and thought she'd be thrilled he'd come up with something that would make her life so much easier... Like I say, different languages.)

3. It helps if you both see the world with the same eyes. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter how old you are or where you come from, what matters is that when you look at the world you see the same thing.

4. By the same extension, it’s boring but it really does help if you have something in common, aside from sex, because when you eventually get out of bed, if you love live music and they hate it or if they love hiking and you think legs only exist to attach your new shoes to your body then… 🤷🏻‍♀️

5. Compromise compromise compromise. I know, also boring. Hate to tell you this, but so much of it is. What compromise doesn’t mean, though, is that one of you always gets your way and the other gives in because quiet life. Hands up, I haven’t always been that good at this, but I’m getting a lot better. (Aren’t I?!)

6. Know your mutual strengths and balance them domestically. I’m a crap cook. I’m not proud of it. J, on the other hand, is a brilliant cook. (Masterchef level. And not the first round.) So nine times out of ten, he cooks. Similarly I almost always do the washing. Nobody needs to iron.

J, left, obv, not a big fan of having his photo taken!

7. Listen. Similarly, this isn’t my strongest point. My brain is so often spinning with things I want to say and the best way to say them. Helpful things, constructive, usually. I reckon. Well, no. Shut up.

8. And on that subject, shut up! Particularly when tempers are high, keep your mouth shut. That nasty, mean, spiteful thing your inner grenade thrower wants to spew on the spur of the furious moment? Do. Not. Say. It.

9. BUT if you have a genuine grievance, you have to air it. If you’ve bought every birthday and Christmas card for every single relative since 1990 and you’re fully sick of it, don’t let it stew because pretty soon it will turn to bile. (And you know what Carrie Fisher said about resentment-fuelled bile.) If it hasn’t already.

10. Nobody around here is psychic.

11. Don’t kick the cat. Bad day at work? By all means rant about it. But don’t take it out on them. Hands up, I have been very very very very very guilty of this in the past: wine rant more wine more rant etc. It’s not a good look or conducive to a relaxing evening, no matter how much you hate your boss/ colleague/ client/ whoever.

12. Be friends. Good friends. Sure, it helps (a lot) if you still fancy each other, but if the idea of hanging out with your partner for days on end fills you with horror/ dread/ terminal boredom/ all three and you rely on your girlfriends for all the really meaningful exchanges in your life, then, um… I don’t know, maybe that does work for some people, but it wouldn’t work for me.

13. In sickness and in health is a real thing, it wasn’t just put in to make the whole thing scan.

14. Don’t judge. I have a tendency to shop too much. Happy? Shop. Sad? Shop. Angry? Shop. Love language? Shop! (Never, I must stress, when we can’t afford it though.) J never judges. He does occasionally roll his eyes.

15. If one or both of you are people who need space (mentally and/or physically) then give it. It might be an hour in a different room when you’re (I’m) watching TV, it might be a midnight walk, it might be a week away to write. Their space requirements don't reflect on you.

16. You need to be a team. Like you’re better together, bigger than the sum of your parts and all that. After all, if you’re not on each other's side, whose side are you on? (Like Dani Shapiro’s son said to her, “You guys are a power couple. Like Frank and Clare Underwood (of House of Cards) without killing people.”)

17. It really helps if you’re not spoiling a pair. We both have misanthropic tendencies. We’re both a touch antisocial. We both love books and curry and walking and John Wick and sea and mountains and Studio Ghibli cartoons and grumpy black cats with no tail and a herd mentality. That probably sounds like a nightmare to a lot of people, but it works for us.

Reading this back now it’s a miracle I didn’t get myself dumped decades ago. So, thirty years… yay, us! But also to return to point one, I’m pretty sure at least one of us has been pretty bloody lucky. And that one is me.

#goals

(*Btw Hourglass was published in the states in 2018, but has only just come out in the UK. Earlier this week, Dani and I had a long chat about marriage and what makes one work while another doesn’t, and what has made hers stay the course ten extremely tough years later. So look out for that coming up on The Shift with Sam Baker podcast soon.)

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And at the other end of the spectrum…

All* of my friends are ending their marriages

Catch up on my chat with Neneh Cherry…

Role models and the older woman

And read more from Maggie Smith about her reappearing act…

Conversations with women (over 40): Maggie Smith, 47

* A note: this post contains affiliate links, which means that a very small percentage of any sale goes to help fund The Shift. If it’s orange (or underlined if you’re reading in the app), it links! (But not all orange/underlined links are affiliates…)