Do you think staying married for a long time deserves praise?

Well, I’ve been married for 32 years, & while I certainly don’t feel like I(we) deserve praise for it, I definitely consider it an accomplishment! :-)

Sure. It takes a lot to keep commitments.

BTW Congrats on 17 years….

Isn’t that why you celebrate anniversaries? To celebrate the strength of your commitment and love for one another? I can see why you’d feel uncomfortable around people who have been divorced, but I say it deserves praise. :)

i think so more these days than ever….

You mean for deliberately not providing offspring of high genetic variety and thus reducing the rate of incorporating advantagous mutations into the general population after natural selection and by that reducing the survivability of the human species in the future? No, they don’t.

I don’t think it deserves praise. I just think most people find it shocking and that is how they respond. “That is great” sounds better than “How the fuck have you pulled that off?”

Marriages worthy of praise are happy and loving marriages, time is irrelevant. Continuous effort needs to be made. My parents have been together for 25 years and they’re both miserable and on the verge of a divorce. One set of grandparents have been together for 60+ years and they’re quite happy, while the other set of grandparents are just hanging in there.

I think it depends on a few things. The quality of the marriage. The strength of the relationship.

Also, who is doing the praising? Some random stranger or a friend or family member who may be invested in your relationship?

It’s hard to say. Any good relationship (marriage or otherwise) is a lot of hard work. If you’ve managed to maintain a good marriage with someone you consider your best friend over the inevitable ups and downs of seventeen years…you should consider it a accomplishment.

To say it was “luck” is selling yourselves short.

@Gokey I agree.

I don’t think the word marriage should be the main focus here though. If any couple have managed to stay together, loving each other, faithful to each other and, most importantly happy for the most part then that’s what should be celebrated regardless of whether they have a legal document or not.

42 years for us. It’s been tough at times. In fact, this past spring & summer was just about the hardest we’ve experienced in all of our marriage. But we made it through & things are much better now. I feel they’re better than they were before, in fact. In the era that we got married, it was for keeps. That’s how we both went into it. It wasn’t an IF this thing lasted. We’ve both worked on it to insure that it DID last. Do we deserve praise? Maybe. Maybe not. But it IS an accomplishment. When I’m told ‘wow, that’s great’, or ’ how do you do it?’ it’s a compliment. And yes, I’m proud of our endurance.

WellI will say “CONGRATULATIONS” yes people are it seems in awe of people like yourself but it’s an admiration for you and a slight jealousy of what you have. It is an accomplishment these days and you should be poud of your marriage and what you have don’t ever feel emabarrassed or anything because you have what you have, be proud if people make you feel uncomfortable then it’s them who have an issue not you. But you need to be confident and act with conviction when reponding to their comments as you have mentioned, as you have stated already, otherwise if you feel slightly bad then people will pick up on this.
My Grandpaprents were married for over 52 years and received a letter from the Queen herself for their continued committment to eac other which I am very proud of.
I myself am divorced (best thing I ever did) but I am not ashamed of this fact. At the end of the day it wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do it just didn’t woek out but I do not envy people like you, I just hope the next time I will end up like you and be as proud and happy as you are. xx

Not generally.

My parents were married 39 years. I never saw them happy.

Wife’s parents married 41 years. Wife says they have never been happy.

My grandparents married over 60 years. I never saw them happy.

It all depends on the satisfaction with the marriage.

@tinyfaery That’s so sad to me. That’s a lot of years to be miserable. A life time wasted. I’m sure they all started out thinking that they were going to go through life together & be happy.

I think so.
And most of the long term marriages I’ve seen are filled with happiness.
My grandparents were married for over 50 years. My great grandparents were married for at least 70 years (I recall reading about them in the paper). My parents just celebrated their 27th anniversary. All very happy marriages.
I just think it shows a level of commitment that is rare nowadays.

Absolutely it deserves praise. Nowadays the divorce rates are higher than ever.. and it says a lot about a couple that they were able to work through their issues and problems and compromise for each other.. and be with each other for such a long time. It takes a lot of patience and love to be able to see the same person day in and day out for years on end .. but it is also one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever experience in life.

Congrats to you!

If it’s a happy marriage then yes, congratulations to all. Life is complicated, you can’t always be with the one you love and love doesn’t always stay so get excited to hear about longterm lucky couples.

Always.

Not really, it’s pretty much a thing of chance or luck, or the Lord’s will, if one should given to believe such, whether one finds someone in the first place who is compatible to be able to stay married to a long time..the work needed to is a given.
So, praise the Lord if you’ve stayed together long enough, if you want to deal in praise, instead of seeking it from you’re fellow humans, themselves struggling for love and glory.
Having said that, I’m someone who was demanding praise when the relationship with with my pet rock had reached the one month point.

I’m definitely with @Leanne1986 and others who’ve said that long-lasting relationships are praiseworthy whether there’s legal documentation or not. Actually, I don’t even think it has to be a romantic relationship to be impressive. People change so much, even very long friendships can take a lot more effort to maintain than folks are willing to put in.

I agree @MacBean. My wife’s mother still has friends she met in high school, more than 40 years ago. Wow. They still talk and go out and do things. That is impressive.

Not praise, admiration and respect.

Well as a woman who was praised for a 22 year marriage that I ended about a year ago I agree with everyone who said it isn’t about the time but the relationship. If a couple has managed to stay married for the long term and managed to be happy, make it through the rough times, come out stronger, and truly still want to be exactly where they are – that is praiseworthy.

Many people I meet seem to think it is worth commenting on. It is very common in our families, so it doens’t seem like such an accomplishment to us.

If the marriage is healthy and happy then yes, sure. If they are fighting all the time or are in an unhealthy marriage, then no.

“If a couple has managed to stay married for the long term and managed to be happy, make it through the rough times, come out stronger, and truly still want to be exactly where they are – that is praiseworthy.”

I agree, and for those sticklers out there, replace the words “stay married” with “stay together” and it comes to the same thing. I believe it takes hard work and maturity to overcome the various stumbling blocks to a long-lived happy relationship.

I have to admit that while my brother made a couple of bad marriages, the exes have not made his divorces any better because they insist on behaving in a childish “me first” manner about everything, including the children. They have taken the easy road to bad behavior, instead of the rather more difficult path to adulthood, maturity and a happy partnership.

In our family long marriages are the norm rather than the exception, but we still congratulate those who continue to demonstrate common sense and maturity by solving marital problems before they grow too big to ignore.

Not sure if “happy” is the element that should garner praise. How about “functional”? Most marriages have hard or confusing periods. Do the partners fall apart and have temper tantrums and go on strike because they’re not currently “happy”? No? They keep doing what they said they’d do while they try to figure things out in a new way? They have my respect.

Well, I’d say that you do deserve praise and it is quite an accomplishment. There’s a trend these days of throwing grand parties on 20th and 25th year of marriage. Went to two of em last week, was quite romantic. Maybe you should have a gala on your 20th year??

@MacBean That’s a good point about longlasting friendships. My best friend and I have known each other for 15 years and I still don’t know what I’d do without her! I think it’s time we threw an anniversary party :D !!!

@susanc When I said “happy” I meant happy for the most part. If a marriage is filled with more misery than happiness then I don’t feel that it is a successful relationship but if there are more good times than bad times and when there are bad times they are overcome, that is a success in my opinion.

Congratulations!
That deserves an award made of after melting an oscar, a grammy, an emmy, a tony, and a moonman in the shape of a big bad heart!!!!

We got ourselves new rings for our 20th. His broke and mine disappeared so we replaced them. This time he got to pick, and we didn’t limit the budget to $400.

@leanne: I should have known you meant that. Just being a stickler.