“Happy Anniversary!”

Exactly 37 years ago this month I married my golfing partner – and what a wonderful round it has been!

A few years into our marriage, we wondered what it would take to have a long, happy marriage. After a lot of discussions with couples who had been married much longer than us, we realized one thing we would need is to find something that we could do together as we aged that we both enjoyed. 

So our search for that “something” began. For years we tried different things. In the beginning it was racquetball.  Well Marc was much better than me – and I’ll just leave it at that!

Then it was softball.  Full disclosure – I played softball from the age of 10 until my mid-thirties. I played three summers on a women’s Class B traveling softball team, and during my time in the Navy, I played 1st base for the Navy women’s traveling team while posted in Japan.

We played on two co-ed teams for a couple of years. Due to his size, Marc was the one our coaches leaned on, thinking he was going to be their secret weapon. My thought was always – “Just wait coach – you really want me, not him” Well, the teams usually figured that out soon enough. 

It went on like this for many different sports: cycling, canoeing, tennis, running – we even tried scuba diving.  It all ended the same – one was always better and the other demoralized. 

So, in 1998 we decided to learn how to play this game called golf. 

The first course we played was the Rota Golf Club while stationed in Rota, Spain. It wasn’t long before we decided that we would give golf a real try – learning quickly that it took patience, skill, and an even temper. Honestly, the temper part wasn’t learned as fast as everything else. 

With just a few months of playing under our belts, we were asked if we would like to volunteer at the Valderrama Royal Club for the European Open. Naturally, we said yes. We had no clue what “volunteering” for a golf tournament meant – but hey, we were all in! In the end, we did everything they asked, and we never looked back.  

We were hooked! 

Golf has now become a part of who we are as a couple.  It has traveled the world with us to well over 200 different courses.  We have met pro players and pro caddies.  We have played in pro-ams.  And, we have enjoyed every minute that this game has afforded us. 

So much so that we have been working on our bucket list to golf in all 50 states for the last 4 years. We have 18 states left to fill in on our “sticker map”.

However, before we started golfing across this big beautiful country, we golfed overseas.

We celebrated our 25^th Wedding Anniversary by playing a round at the Old Course at St. Andrews.  This golfing adventure had a certain mystique and a unique charm that is timeless.  The memories and adventures formed there will stay with me forever.

But….our adventures together don’t stop on the golf course!  

We have ridden our bicycles for 500 miles across Iowa in RAGBRAI. We have witnessed the midnight sun while running in the arctic circle, and we have ridden our motorcycles along the million dollar highway in Colorado. We have skied Off-Piste in the Swiss Alps.  Because we enjoy the adventure of hiking, we jumped on the adventure to climb The Gran Paradiso (the highest peak in Italy) and Mont Blanc (the highest peak in Western Europe). We have even bungy jumped off the Kawarau bridge in New Zealand – even though it took me 3.5 hours to get up my nerve! And we have taken a 7-day live aboard dive trip in Bali!

It does bring a smile to my face and fills my heart with joy when I think about all the things we have done over these last 37 (+) years together. And it is not lost on me that marriages that last a long time are somewhat of an anomaly. I think the hidden secret of my own parent’s marriage experience was, in their time, most unusual. Suffice it to say that after a monumentally rocky beginning, a beginning that would have ended forever most modern couplings, my parents stayed married until death did them part. Their love for each other was deep and abiding, but not romantic or overly sentimental. 

So, if, in my view, being madly in love after 37 or 40 or 50 years is not a real thing, what is it that makes a marriage a happy one?

What is it that makes a marriage last? What’s the benefit of having a forever partner? What is the nature of love after several decades post courtship? I am pretty sure I can read all about this stuff in Psychology Today, and I’m sure there are at least a half a dozen Ted Talks on the subject. But for me, there is no need to really field those questions. Because you see – the truth is – I’m living it. I don’t need somebody else with a degree to define or describe anything to me about my marriage.

I wonder if the recipe for a long-lasting love relationship is almost a kind of “no-brainer-common-sense” type stuff?

Whatever it may be, I have come to recognize that, while there may be many recipes for a successful marriage, we have found a recipe that works for us. It’s our recipe and no one else’s. More accurately, it’s my recipe. Although my golfing partner might come up with a very different list, here are some of the things that I believe we do that might explain our longevity: 

• We are kind to one another. 
• We care about each other’s physical and emotional well-being, and we take good care of each other when it’s needed. 
• We are supportive of each other’s goals and dreams. 
• We enjoy each other’s company. 
• We laugh together. 
• We say, “I love you” with some regularity, maybe often. 
• We have deep interests in common, but . . . 
• We pursue our own interests without expectation that the other will be as enthusiastic or even share the experience of that interest with us. 
• We are supportive of and celebrate each other’s successes even though we may not share in that success. 
• We are not solely dependent on each other for our individual happiness and contentedness. 
• We do not make large financial decisions independently. 
• We do our best to share household (RV) responsibilities. 
• We express our anger, but do not often fight; fighting has made up a tiny fraction of our experiences together. 
• We argue without yelling 90% of the time. 
• We apologize to each other when mistakes are made, or feelings are hurt.
• We forgive each other for our trespasses.
• We have transcended together through seemingly insurmountable difficulties – in other words, when it might have been easier and more expedient to call it quits, we dug in to do the work that needed to be done toward real clarity, individually and together. We have stayed together not by obligation, but by choice. 

It must be said though, our relationship is not a perfect one. We annoy each other. We frustrate each other. Maybe we are too independent and the time we spend together could be deepened or enriched. Maybe…..but honestly – there’s always work to do, ways in which the marriage could be stronger. The goal is to avoid complacency and resignation even into what might be the last third of our lifetime.

That’s not easy stuff, but it is important work. 

And you know what? There is great comfort in that stability; in the sense or the feeling of a committed partnership; in the sense of having found a home with another person, in another person; in the richness of a history together that, counting the courtship, is just about four decades deep. In this moment of my life, I wouldn’t trade that kind of comfort for the world.  

My Reads from the Reds: The last 37 rounds have been a blast – and that is because I have been experiencing it with my best friend and forever golfing partner.

Fairways and Greens – We are 18 Holes and Counting

Written By: Kathy Festa