Sunday morning early after my walk on the Mandeville Lakefront, I drove past a church that was letting out. The bells caught my attention and the people existing the worship center too.
Couples were holding hands, arms draped around each other’s shoulders, talking, laughing returning to their automobiles. When they looked away from each other, they looked in the same direction.
It wasn’t an event, not a wedding, graduation or other ceremony, just a common, ordinary Sunday morning. That is love. A willingness to go somewhere together, look ahead, see what the other sees.
Divorce is on the decline. Thankfully the 70s and 80s surge is over, and children of divorced couples are establishing their own terms of commitment. College-educated couples are less likely to divorce than are non-college educated couples. Marrying later rather younger (teens) increases the likelihood of sustaining marriage, according to the New York Times.
Happiness is on the rise too. Rather than focusing extensively and exclusively on what is wrong, researchers are studying causes of happiness. Healthy, sustained relationships make for happier lives. Couples engage each other in heated laughter.
Like Meryl Streep who has a first and only marriage says, “The secret to a long lasting marriage is goodwill, a willingness to bend, and to shut up now and then.”
