A Man Who Inspires People

I was so inspired by Boo’s and my visit with Rosea and Ben this weekend that I was forced to write a new "Love Doctor" column for the first time in over twenty years.

Their marriage of over thirty years, in many ways was a carbon copy of ours, and not by chance, as Boo and I were the first couple in the family to wed and by the time Ben and Rosea became a serious couple in their late teens, Boo and I had established a happy marriage and economic upward mobility even though we were very young when we started and had faced some challenges, struggling through tight money, austere household budgets together.

There is something about unspoiled young love where being together is worth struggle. Specifically love between two people who have no reason to distrust one another, no emotional baggage and years of courtship (4 for us, 5 for them) which have confirmed the trust.

Let's be real. There is a difference between struggle with a plan and struggle without one. The first is fed and supported by hope, the second is an unsustainable fantasy. Both Ben and Rosea and Boo and I used military service in the Air Force as our struggle field, for some young couples it is getting through college together, for others building a business together.

We have other friends, our road dogs, Ben and Jerry, who also became a couple very early and struggled together, improving their lives as they went, and all three couples understood that we could only have what we could afford at the time, and that it is always about “Us” or “We”, except perhaps on your birthday. We all agree that struggling together gave us a respect for one another that can only come from having someone next to you who gave all they had and were satisfied and even cheerful sharing what little came at the time.

Over this weekend we laughed at how we would throw a card party with friends with a couple of six packs of cheap beer and popcorn, the kind that you buy in bulk in a plastic bag and measure and pop on the stove (couldn’t afford a popcorn popper). Popcorn is still a mainstay at our house, never expensive microwave popcorn, but at least we have a well used popcorn popper now.

And that’s another thing that three couples agree about struggle. You really learn what is important. That spending time with good people matters more than what you can afford to serve, and that to good people it won’t matter anyway. 

Mutual struggle also makes sharing automatic. For us, there is no such thing as a "personal" windfall. Boo won at the casino, and before I was fully awake she slipped me my “treat”, and then we could share her story and the fun she had, which was the important part. Surviving struggle together creates a real sense of partnership since it really was the “We” and “Us” pulling and sacrificing together that made both our lives and our love successful.

I wonder how one can have confidence in putting their all into a relationship if their partner was never tested by the fire of struggle with and for one another. How do you know the character, strength and commitment to life together in a partner without mutual struggle?

So, in some ways, some of us, meaning well, may ruin the opportunity for such powerful partnerships for our children by suggesting to young people that getting yourself “together” should come before falling in love. Its interesting because many of the people who preach this idea to their children are themselves strong couples who struggled together as young lovers, and now want their children to avoid those same temporary hardships which made their own marriages the strong, sharing, mutually supportive relationships they came to be.

By the way, struggling together still works. He worked until she got her degree. She worked until he finished law school. Power couple, fully confident and mutually supportive of one another. They know one another from their struggle.

I have friends who have adult children who are doing well for themselves who see the “gold diggers” (male and female) coming at their children who, unfortunately, have no way to discern past how they look and what they say, except perhaps a credit check. Unfortunately, even similarly accomplished potential mates can’t command the trust level or facility for sharing that mutual struggle provides, ergo pre-nuptials!

Young people with well matched partners who have been "a thing" for several years and want to be married should be coached in young love.

• KEY: Avoid pregnancy until you can afford it and the partnership is time tested.
• How will you make it…What is the plan? Help them shape it.
• Ask if they are willing to struggle, to do without things they are accustomed to now.
• Don't cut off educational support you were willing to provide for your child.
• Send a little unsolicited help every now and then.
• Take comfort realizing that focused couples are less likely to be "distracted"

Ben reminded me of how studying basic electronics, as I had suggested, and entering the Air Force (as I had) allowed him to eventually become a Jet Engine Mechanic Instructor Trainer before he retired to a new career while Rosea got her teaching credentials and became an elementary school principal candidate. In their case as in our's and so many great marriages, how they earned a living was a means to an end, the work choices supported the relationship, not vice versa, even though the strength of the partnership resulted in support for one another's careers. In these relationships, the only "win" is a "win - win"!

So, it really is true what the old people say, “Whatever don’t kill you makes you strong”… even for young marriages.