Successful Marriage

How to Have a Successful Marriage

or what worked for Don & Carolyn Rogers

Essay requested by a young lady who attended our 49th anniversary party at Featherstone Assisted Living Home.

Choosing a Partner

This seems obvious, but so many people think it just happens. Something happens, for sure, but it won’t last long if it’s just physical chemistry. Attraction is necessary, of course, but it must go deeper than just good looks.

You need to know yourself and what you want and need out of a marriage. If you want a fantastic sex life, you must know what works for you. My personal opinion is that virginity is vastly overrated, and marrying with out having any sexual experience is likely to be a startling revelation for both people. There is a lot more to it than what the farmer’s kid saw in the barnyard. As the old song says, “Shop around, and don’t pick the very first one.”

If you want financial security, you need to know what will be the bottom line for a partner. My first girlfriend insisted that I go get a college degree before she would marry me. When I ran out of money for college, another lovely woman wanted me without a degree. She became my wife, and we have lived well on a machinist’s wages. 

If you want adventure, how extreme are you willing to go? We both wanted to travel and experience life - not just sit at home and watch TV. But we both agreed that danger and fear was not what we were looking for. Sky diving, kayaking through rapids and water falls, and other risky behaviors were not for us. We agreed on other activities that were exciting, but safer, such as airplanes and motorcycles and mountain hiking. What you choose is not as important as both partners wanting the same things.   

Commitment is not Optional

Masters & Johnson and other researchers all agree that monogamy is most likely to lead to a long happy marriage. A few other arrangements have worked, but are much rarer. We were once invited to swap partners with a couple who had an open marriage, but we declined. They seemed to be committed to staying together (maybe for their two kids) but neither seemed to be satisfied with just the one other partner. It seemed a bit sad to me. I’m not judging - I hope they are still happy together - but it did not attract us, or make us think we were missing out on something. I rather felt that their marriage was missing the deep and total love that we had for each other.

In a certain way, this is related to choosing the right partner. If you choose a Bill Clinton or a Donald Trump, whose values don’t include faithfulness to just one partner, you can’t expect to have an exclusive relationship for long.  

Sharing the Fun - Togetherness

Any couple expecting to live their lives together need to have common interests. For me and my wife it was square dancing. It could be anything: gardening, fishing, camping, or music. Something that both people can share together in their spare time and vacations will keep them going in the same direction. If both have only separate interests, eventually their lives will grow apart in separate directions.  

Marriage First - Kids Second

   Too many parents make the mistake of favoring their children over their lover. Children are self centered, and will do things that tear their parents apart without even being aware of what they are doing. 

Rather than cater to the children, couples need to remember to be a loving couple first, and never let the kids get between you. You are modeling for the children how a loving marriage should work, and in the process, your children will see and understand that the parent’s love for each other is essential to a happy marriage. 

Children will also understand that if the parents are fighting each other and are not happy, the secure home they enjoy is at risk. 

Sex and Satisfaction

Some of this advice may be dated, since when my wife and I started our marriage together, there was no internet, online pornography. or easily obtainable information on sexual practices and skills. 

There is nothing wrong with studying to see the various ways to sexually satisfy your partner. That is more important than satisfying your own needs. Different people have different needs and speeds, and learning what works for your partner is essential for long term lovers. 

My wife and I read a lot of books, and we subscribed to Playboy magazine for about thirty years. It’s a joke, but there really were a lot of good educational articles with the pictures. My wife always renewed my subscription if I forgot.

Staying Young while Getting Old

As we got older, we slowed down some, and sex was no longer an everyday thing. The urgency and drive mellowed out, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. Loving became less frantic and more leisurely. 

As a friend of mine said at his retirement party years ago, when asked how his sex life was, “I used to go all night, and now it takes all night, but it’s just as much fun!”

I see ads for testosterone products to make you younger and more virile, and I see ads for little blue pills to make guys penis’ grow bigger, but at seventy four, I haven’t needed any of that stuff yet. I’m assuming that staying active and getting good nutrition has something to do with that.. 

Probably not having ever smoked helps, too. They call them “coffin nails” but I think they are even more “erection spikes.” Tobacco use directly shrinks blood vessels, not only causing heart problems, but erectile disfunction. Everyone I know who needs Viagra has been a life long smoker.

Honesty

Above all else, we agreed to never keep secrets from each other. Sometimes people make mistakes. Some times, in a moment of weakness they do things they regret. But trying to hide it will only make it bigger and worse in the end. 

Honesty can hurt, and hurt badly, but like any other wound, it is essential to open and clean the injury before it can start to heal. The truth will always out, and in the meantime, it is infecting the whole relationship. 

I confess to not knowing how to flirt, and not understanding why someone would want to intentionally want their lover to feel jealous. I want my partner to feel loved and valued above all others. I never did anything that would make my lover wonder where I was or what I was doing. 

For some guys, that would be sure evidence that I was “pussy whipped.” I might have to plead guilty, but I have yet to find a down side. I was always amused when I found I was the husband other husbands loved to hate. It’s OK, I didn’t want their love anyway. I only wanted the love of my wife.

Here’s hoping you find as much joy and love as we have.