Marriage Experts

So for this post, I interviewed my grandparents (my mother’s parents), who have been married for 55 years and are still very much committed. They are both Mexican and got married at the age of 18 & 17, they had a total of about seven children (two of which died as infants), and have now about 30 grandkids and 6 great grandchildren.

I started off by asking my grandmother what her secret was for staying with my grandfather for so long, and she said that patience has been very important for her. She also said that fighting (not physically) and arguing is something very natural and that the way that they get over it is by giving each other space and time to let it all out. She told me that over the years they had many problems they faced, but that their marriage held up through it all because they knew it was the right thing to do. I asked her why she thought couples today got divorced so quickly, and she replied that “people today just don’t want to put up with one another, that everyone wants things to go their way and the easiest way possible.” She went on to say, that couples today don’t like to be challenged, and that they are always looking for someone who has the next big thing or has more money than their spouse. According to her, the best advice she could give a couple would be that they should try and weight things out and have a lot of patience with one another, because in the end no one is perfect.

I turned to my grandpa next and asked him what he did to make his marriage last so long; he said, “once people got married in our day, we had no other choice but to stick together, divorce was never an option for us.” He said that the way he thinks they have been successful is by always being on the same page and agreeing with one another. He said that he thinks that today’s marriages don’t last long is because of money and because everyone is so “free,” and that’s why no one can take marriage freely. He explained that money is a problem because no one can get enough of it; he reflected that back when he was my age and starting his family, men were the only ones with a job and who earned the income, so women had no choice but to go along with what the husbands said and gave them as an allowance. He said that marriage changed when women started working, and when they also earned money; he says that once that occurred, that there were more disputes over what could and could not be bought and done in households. This also ties into the whole freedom belief; he says that today there are more places that people can go to or buy to show off their money. He also mentions that transportation has changed our freedom and allowed people to separate from each other a lot more easily. His advice for couples would be that they share everything with not only each other but also with other families, and try to always hear what the other person is saying in order to have good communication with one another.

I think that something these two forgot to mention was that having something in common, like in their case their religious beliefs, is something that keeps couples strong because it is something that they will always be able to have in common. I also think that seeing my parents, grandparents, and almost everyone before them have been a good model to look at. It’s very common today that people’s parents are divorced themselves, so there really isn’t anyone to look up to. I think that they both brought up very good points, and it was fun hearing their stories.