How to have a long marriage

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Remember my butter fiasco while I was attempting to make banana bread with my new-to-me mixer? (See "What a Morning!")

Well, I got brave and decided to make some homemade bread, using the recipe that came with the mixer. Making bread and not having to knead it was the one thing I was really anticipating.

I excitedly got all of my ingredients together and put on the dough hooks. As I pushed the buttons and turned up the speed, there was an awful screeeeccchhh that I could barely tolerate.

After fussing with it a bit, I resorted to hand kneading, as my husband recognized he had a job to do. The bread turned out very good, but my husband spent a few hours in the garage taking the whole mixer apart.

Since the mixer is quite old, he figured it probably needed some oil. When he got it all oiled and put back together, he brought it in the house and the offensive screech was gone! He said something still isn't quite right, but it certainly runs fine now.

I can hardly wait to try it again, but since that recipe resulted in two loaves of bread, it may be awhile.

One of the things I really appreciate about my husband is his "can-do" spirit. We are of the generation that at least tries to fix things before discarding them. While we have some room for improvement, we are always preaching against wastefulness.

Which brings me to my point. As we celebrate 42 years of marriage tomorrow, I was thinking about all of the marriages that don't survive (for various reasons). It's always a sad thing when the realization comes, too late, that you have chosen a poor life partner, you have been duped, or life's circumstances have sent spouses in different directions.

We need to be very careful today that when a marriage seems broken, that we do all we can to dismantle it, try to see what is broken, reassemble it, and do whatever can be done to get it working again.

At our parish this past weekend, they honored married couples, asking the usual advice question about how the couples have lasted so long. They had the usual funny answers (we weren't part of the "survey.")

Later, though, I asked my husband how he would answer that question. He gave me the best answer I have ever heard. He said there is no room for selfishness or ego in a marriage.

He is so right. Guess I'll keep him another 42 years!

Janet Cassidy

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