This month, my parents are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Helping mom plan a simple, mostly family, get together to celebrate has gotten me thinking about how much I owe them in terms of my writing. You might be wondering how the two go together (or you might not…this is a romance blog, after all.)
Mom and Dad met in college. They were friends for a long time before anything romantic happened. Mom likes to talk about how, at first, the thought of holding Dad’s hand made her physically ill (not from happy butterflies, but from “Eww.”) Obviously that changed. They don’t have the fiery romance that you often find in romance novels. They’re not polar opposites who drive each other crazy, talk past, at, or through one another and yet have such physical chemistry that they can’t stay apart. (My mother will be quick to add that they have plenty of physical chemistry, but even at forty I prefer to plug my ears and sing “lalalalalaaaa” when she starts down that path. Cause really. They’re my parents.) They have what I’ve always considered a comfortable, friendly romance. When they got married, my dad promised a new tidbit of trivia every day. To my knowledge, he hasn’t let her down yet.
And those tend to be the kinds of relationships I write about. And the ones I want to read, as well.
I finished a book recently where the hero and heroine were sniping at each other pretty much from page one. Somehow by the time they got to the end of the book they were madly in love…but it sure didn’t seem that they liked one another. When turned off my Kindle I sat back and thought about how grateful I am to have had such an example of what real love is from my parents so that I didn’t have to rely on fictional narratives or real life cautionary tales to teach me about love.
I know I’m incredibly blessed to have parents who have stayed married through all the ups and downs that come your way in 50 years…so I got to thinking, how did you learn about love, real life love that has the potential to last?
Elizabeth Maddrey is a semi-reformed computer geek and homeschooling mother of two who lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C. When she isn’t writing, Elizabeth is a voracious consumer of books. She loves to write about Christians who struggle through their lives, dealing with sin and receiving God’s grace on their way to their own romantic happily ever after.
Like you, I had true, lasting love played out in front of me all my life. My dad died the day before their 55th anniversary. I’ve also known many other couples with a long history together and could see that, while it certainly didn’t always look like sunshine and roses, it was worth working through. There are CERTAINLY causes for divorce, but laziness and selfishness aren’t them.
love that – selfishness and laziness aren’t the reason to divorce – really sums it up.