We Stayed

My wife and I have been married for forty-two years.

Whenever people hear that, especially younger couples, they sometimes look at us like we know something they don't.

We don't.

There was no secret. We argued about money. We argued about the kids. We argued about whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher.

For approximately thirty of those forty-two years, we've been having the same argument about the thermostat.

She thinks 72 degrees is reasonable.

I think 72 degrees is what people set their thermostat to when they own stock in the electric company.

Neither of us has changed our position.

When we got married, I thought marriage would feel different. More romantic, I guess. We were twenty-four and twenty-two. We had a small apartment, secondhand furniture and almost no money.

We were crazy about each other.

We also drove each other crazy.

She left cabinet doors open.

I left wet towels on the bed.

She'd ask me what I wanted for dinner, I'd say, "Anything," and then somehow reject the first three things she suggested.

Apparently I've been doing this for four decades.

We've had wonderful years. We've also had years when we weren't very good at being married.

There was a period when our kids were little when almost every conversation was about money.

Mortgage. Groceries. School clothes. Something on the car breaking. I worked too much. She was exhausted.

We'd finally get the kids to sleep, sit on the couch together, and instead of talking, we'd both stare at the television.

There were nights we went to bed angry.

There were mornings when we woke up and were still angry.

We've said things we shouldn't have said.

We've apologized.

Sometimes badly.

Sometimes not until three days later.

People like to talk about marriage as though there's one big moment when you decide whether you're committed. Maybe that's true for some people. It wasn't for us.

For us, staying was thousands of little decisions nobody saw.

It was making her coffee even though I was still irritated with her.

It was her picking up my prescription because she was already near the pharmacy.

It was sitting through school concerts, parent meetings and terrible children's birthday parties together.

It was changing diapers at two in the morning.

Then teaching those same children to drive.

Then sitting beside each other after they moved out and realizing the house had become strangely quiet.

It was funerals. Weddings. Job losses. Promotions. Christmas mornings. Tuesday afternoons.

It was asking, "Do you need anything from the store?" probably ten thousand times.

A few months ago, we were having dinner with a younger couple.

They'd been married for two years.

At some point the husband asked me:

"What's the secret to forty-two years?"

My wife immediately said, "Separate bathrooms."

Everyone laughed.

Then they looked at me.

I didn't really have an answer.

On the drive home, I thought about it.

I thought about our wedding day and all the big moments that came afterward. But strangely, those weren't the memories that kept coming back. I remembered her falling asleep in the passenger seat on road trips. I remembered standing beside her in grocery stores trying to figure out which tomatoes she wanted. I remembered the way she always steals a bite from my plate after insisting she isn't hungry.

I remembered thousands of completely ordinary days.

This morning, I woke up before her.

I went downstairs and made coffee.

I poured mine.

Then I made hers the way she likes it and left it on the counter.

A few minutes later, she came into the kitchen.

She took one sip.

"Too much cream."

Forty-two years.

I still can't get it right.

I told her tomorrow she could make her own coffee.

She told me maybe she would.

We both knew she wouldn't.

Tomorrow morning, I'll make two cups again.

Maybe that's the secret.

Not one promise you make at twenty-four and somehow keep perfectly for the rest of your life.

Just waking up the next morning and choosing each other again.

Then doing it so many times that one day you look across the kitchen and realize forty-two years have passed.

She still leaves cabinet doors open.

I still complain about the thermostat.

And tomorrow morning, I'll make the coffee.