{"id":620,"date":"2007-11-08T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/marriage-is-a-discipline.html"},"modified":"2007-11-08T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T10:45:00","slug":"marriage-is-a-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/marriage-is-a-discipline.html","title":{"rendered":"Marriage Is a Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

My good friend, Sue, celebrates 55 years of marriage today. I asked her what, more than anything else, kept her and her husband together for so long.
\n“Compromise,” she said. “And friendship.”
\n“Oh, thank God,” I replied, “I thought you were going to say \u2018hot, steamy sex,\u2019 and then I\u2019d be in knee-high animal waste.”
\nI need people like Sue to remind me of how marriage really works, of what you really need to be able to go out to dinner with the same mate five decades later.
\nThrow out infatuation. Throw out common interests. Throw out chemistry (for the most part). Throw out basically everything the media feeds us on what a relationship between a man and a woman should look like: the head rush, adrenaline, savage sex, chivalry, and the excitement and easiness of it all.
\nIf I\u2019ve learned anything from the marriage experts, it\u2019s this: if you want to stay married, you have to work at your marriage like every other aspect of your life. You have to communicate and compromise. You have to bite your lip when you want to cuss, and you\u2019ve got to be kind when you don\u2019t want to.
\nBeyond Blue<\/a> reader Peg, who has been married for more than 40 years, wrote this on the message board of my “Stay or Leave?”<\/a> post:<\/p>\n

Marriage is a discipline like any other discipline taken seriously (i.e., sports, dance, etc.) and each day I have to work at it. My Catholic faith keeps me going against the odds society gives us these days. I had to look deep into myself to realize my own shortcomings that contributed and contribute to a good relationship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My good friend, Sue, celebrates 55 years of marriage today. I asked her what, more than anything else, kept her and her husband together for so long. “Compromise,” she said. “And friendship.” “Oh, thank God,” I replied, “I thought you were going to say \u2018hot, steamy sex,\u2019 and then I\u2019d be in knee-high animal waste.”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\nMarriage Is a Discipline - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/marriage-is-a-discipline.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marriage Is a Discipline - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My good friend, Sue, celebrates 55 years of marriage today. I asked her what, more than anything else, kept her and her husband together for so long. “Compromise,” she said. “And friendship.” “Oh, thank God,” I replied, “I thought you were going to say \u2018hot, steamy sex,\u2019 and then I\u2019d be in knee-high animal waste.”…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/marriage-is-a-discipline.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-08T10:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Marriage Is a Discipline - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/11\/marriage-is-a-discipline.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Marriage Is a Discipline - Beyond Blue","og_description":"My good friend, Sue, celebrates 55 years of marriage today. 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