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Today is my Ruby wedding anniversary, 40 years to the day that my wife and I tied the knot. It's quite the accomplishment, if I do say so myself.
Thanks. Thank you. Yes, I know. Really, I appreciate OK, shut up. At least 95 percent of the credit should go to my wife. She's the one who married a lunatic and stuck with him when common sense (and plenty of people) energetically suggested otherwise.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened. One minute I was thinking of going to Texas and shipping out, and the next I was married.
Other than staying alive, this is the longest I have ever stuck to anything. I'm not complaining. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. How it came to be is the question.
I know the exact day my wife developed an interest in me. I didn't find out about it until after we were married, when I read her missionary journal from South America.
In an entry dated April 2, 1974, she wrote:
"The zone leader is furious. One of the Rivera elders was tired of being robbed, so he taped razor blades to the rungs of the ladder to the roof of their apartment. There is dried blood all over the wall. Yuck. But they have not been robbed again.
"On the bus ride back to our area, my companion said she went to high school with the razor-blade elder. Kirby. He is the last person she ever expected to see here."
Cool, huh? Who knew this chance bit of admiration from afar would set the stage for a 40-year marriage? Not me. Up until the minute I kissed her a year later, I thought she hated me.
No one can be married this long without learning a few things about relationships. It naturally follows that I'm frequently asked for advice on how to keep a marriage going.
The most common question I get is, "What is wrong with your wife?"
As far as I know, nothing. The Huntsman Cancer Institute saved her life 10 years ago, but other than that, she seems fine. Maybe I'm missing something.
Never mind that. Here are the most important things I have found to keep a marriage going. I've had to learn all of them the hard way. But the fact that I'm still married means I did learn them.
First, not everything that comes into your head should come out of your mouth. Try to figure out when to shut up. Invariably that moment will have occurred way before you realize it's time to do it. Learn to shorten the distance between the two.
Second, there are no traditional roles in a committed marriage. The best person for the job is the person with the talent for it. My wife manages our money, keeps order in our home and prepares nutritious meals. I kill bugs and keep a job.
Third, allow for constructive change in your spouse. This is really important because the person you marry isn't going to be the exact same person you're still married to 40 years later.
But there should still be enough of them to remind you of why you married them in the first place. My wife says I'm every bit as defiantly crazy as I was the day she first saw me in South America. Conversely, she's still just as beautiful and smart as I remember.
Finally, and most importantly, bad times don't have to be the end of a marriage. If you're both still willing to work at it, you can fix nearly anything. You just might have to sleep in the garage for a while.
That's all I know. Happy Anniversary to the woman I can't stop loving.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.