Category: Uncategorized

Hello again, when I published the request for questions last month I was a bit surprised at the responses, and also that I could comment on each one. Several had lessons that struck me from our life together, Barbara and I, running a business together, and growing old together.

You’ll recall the questions was essentially, if you stayed together a long time, what were the circumstances under which you stayed together. In our case, Barbara and I were married for 56 years and she passed away in 2019 from a combination of cancer and Alzheimer’s.

So, now come along 3 or 4 people I actually knew who responded and I thought some comments from me, based on my experience with Barbara, might be helpful.

So, here goes.

Response #1:

Thanks for the memories, Jim!

Actually, when we worked together,

I called you so that I could listen to and speak with Barbara!

Cheers

Comment:

Yes, you and hundreds of other friends and clients every year. If you think back about your calls, if I was in, you wound up talking to me usually withing 30 seconds, whether you wanted to or not. That was her goal for every call. It’s what set us apart from the big guys . . . eventually you got to speak to some helpful person. Within a minute of reaching us you were talking to me.

The bigger the agency the less likely your account person was even selected in the first week.

Barbara and I were committed to getting you something in writing with 24 hrs of your call . . . Being first to connect and respond often helped us get and keep the business. Especially when the bigger firms had to make excuses about their proposal or other key information was delayed. Our stuff was on their desk the next morning . . .from me.

By the time the competitor’s stuff arrived I was at another level and talking budget.

She remembered everyone, their dog’s name, their mother’s infected toe. Always effusively happily. Her mother Ruth was the happiest woman I have ever known, and she spread it around.

Barbara was the second happiest person I have ever known. I know where she got it from . . . totally genuine and real.

Barbara’s real rapport with everyone compensated for my frequent hermit-like behavior. The point is that everything she did was targeted to getting me and the client together, making progress every time there was contact.

Her life and efforts were always committed to what I needed. I never even realized this for the

first several years we were married. Guys can be really dense.

Every year we were together, her commitment to me and my work deepened. That meant for me that every moment we were together, which was almost every moment, I wanted to find ways to acknowledge and actively cherish her efforts. We each found ways every day to acknowledge our loving dependence on each other.

She worked mainly in the office, tended to our two growing boys, making their lives interesting.  Taught sewing with knits at the local Junior College. Both boys worked in our business for some of their teen years. As the years passed, and these two amazing kids did things we never thought about. We would frequently ask , “where did you learn that?” Invariably they would point at one or both of us.

Whenever she did come with me, I made it a point to caringly introduce her and mention some specific critical task she was working on for me that day.

Response #2:

1. Discuss without the intention of controlling or winning the outcome.
2. Share household responsibilities, especially the “dirty work” of laundry, clearing the dinner table, washing the dishes, scrubbing the bathroom, taking out the garbage, etc.
3. In bed, hug warmly to absorb the good pheromones. Do it with the kids, too.
4. Never force sex and say thank you after.
5. Talk, talk, talk, don’t argue, argue, argue.
6. Put your list of agreed-upon, cooperative to-dos on the refrigerator door as a gentle, not provocative, reminder.

Comment:

This is pretty negative.

Barbara and I recognized early on the corrosive and coercive power of negative language. The language above is filled with threats of some harmful result if . . .what?

The reality came for us with Barbara’s first pregnancy. By herself, she determined that if she was going to be pregnant it was going to be a happy experience. But then the relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, even total strangers on the bus, or in a store kept showing up with horror stories.

Our decision here was one of the most consequential of our lives together.

No second chances for these negative purveyors of pain and suffering. They were gone. Pronto. Period. We never missed one of them nor did we again fret over handling Uncle Harvey’s abusive behavior. He was gone.

Here’s my take on this couples togetherness plan:

1. Discuss the intention of finding a mutually peaceful result…and really find it.
2. Share all household responsibilities. Make an alphabetic list of all tasks and assign them fairly.
3. In bed, hug warmly to absorb the good pheromones. Do it with the kids, too.
4. Encourage sex, make it happy, be grateful, and accept all refusals or deferrals lovingly and joyfully.
5. Talk, talk, talk, listen, listen, listen. Rely on Barbara’s Eight Ingredients of Happiness at all times. 
6. Post your list of agreed-upon, cooperative to-dos on the refrigerator door and perhaps on the workbench, if there is one. Simply call it reminders.

An instructive story:

Jim Jr’s engagement.

At the time, we were pretty sure that the girl Jim Jr. was spending time with was going to be the one he asked to marry, and that did come to pass. A whole other story.

Her family lived in Long Island. Barbara and I were invited to meet them all on a Sunday afternoon. It was a pretty long drive, we were new to the entire New York area, and we soon discovered why Long Island is called Long Island. It is about 100 miles long.

The result is that we arrived late and it was a chilly mid-winter day. We were greeted warmly at the front door, our coats were taken, and we started to head towards what appeared to be a living room, but it was also quite evident that there was a very serious fight going on verbally with some of the people in that room. As we walked toward the room, we looked at each other, and thought, “What was this all about?” We both decided at the same time, we weren’t going to stay for whatever it was.

We turned around, got our coats out of the closet, and started heading out the front door when Jim’s fiancé rushed up and asked where we were going. Our response, almost in unison, we don’t do these things this way. Give us a call when things have calmed down. Her mother, whose name is also Barbara, came up and was in shock, but we were determined we weren’t going to hang around for whatever was going on in that house.

Every day the following week we got a call from Barbara, from Jim’s fiancé, from others in the family that we please return and they promised to “be on our best behavior”. The following Sunday, there was to be a re-acquaintance. This time, we were on time. It was still chilly, and when the front door opened there were about 20 people in a line, each one smiling and saying happy things, but mostly saying, “We’ll be on our best behavior, please stay.” It was actually pretty funny. In fact, it came to be kind of a funny ritual whenever we attended a family event.    

Response #3:

We gave each other space and privacy when necessary.

Comment:

Our experience was different. Barbara and I constantly looked for ways to be together. We wanted to work together, travel together, do everything in our lives together, and so we did.

After 56 years of marriage, I can’t recall one circumstance where we chose to separate for any reason. But again, that was Barbara and I. We held hands from the time we were teenagers and that was the talk of the family as well. Everywhere we went, we walked together and held hands.

So this response is an interesting one. We just hadn’t thought of this as a strategy for building a long-term relationship. But as they say, whatever keeps your boat afloat.

Response #4:

When Mama’s Happy, Everybody’s Happy!

Comment:

Here again, our situation was somewhat different. There were two Mama’s, Barbara’s mother and Barbara, who were really the happiness merchants in the family. I actually only recall one circumstance where there was just a bit of tension. That was when Barbara and I announced our engagement on a Sunday afternoon in September. Barbara’s mother pulled me aside pretty quickly, looked me in the eye, and said sternly, “James, there will be no weddings in this family until my daughters have careers.” I understood immediately because Ruth’s first husband died of multiple myeloma when Barbara was 10 and her sister Bonny was 2. At the time, she left college to marry her husband and by all accounts, it was an extraordinary match. He drove a laundry truck for Pilgrim Laundry but was a really striking individual and very memorable.

In fact, I never met him, but they talked about him all the time as though he was coming to dinner that evening. A couple of times I had to ask Barbara’s family members, “He is dead? Isn’t he?” And they assured me he was, but he was just that powerful past family character.

When I thought of this response in our family situation, the mamas were busy making everybody else happy, but I can certainly relate to this sentiment.

I certainly hope to hear from more of you about the techniques you use to stay together for many, many years.

Please send your responses to the question, “How did you stay married for so many years?” to me at jel@e911.com. Subject line: Happiness Responses.

Barbara’s Eight Ingredients of Happiness