How To Stay Married

How to Stay Married

Tomorrow is my friend Teresa Branstetter Kimbel and her husband, Phil’s forty-third wedding anniversary. Someone asked her what was their secret. This is her reply.

1. We’ve worshiped the same God TOGETHER. We met at the watermelon cutting, the first activity for the Hilltoppers for Christ, in 1973, while attending Park Street church of Christ, later to become Greenwood Park. That’s a pretty good place to meet your future spouse. Where I frequent is most likely where I’ll meet my future mate.

2. We’ve been faithful to each other because we’ve been faithful to God. Surely if we can please God, we can please each other. Others have attracted our attention, but obedience to God has strengthened our resolve to stay faithful.

3. We’ve loved each other unconditionally, which means we’ve overlooked lots of mistakes, which means we’ve extended lots of grace. How can we not graciously extend to each other what God has freely given us?

4. We’ve accepted when we haven’t always approved. My dad hardly ever touched a gun except to coon hunt. Guns were dangerous to him as they are to me. Yet Phil is a gun guru. To insist he gives up guns would be like asking him to be short. I am not the energetic nineteen-year-old Phil married. Many days I’m the woman who can barely move. I accept his hobbies, and he accepts my limitations.

5. I’ve submitted but not always happily, which is not easy. Phil told me when we first got married, that if something didn’t matter to him, it didn’t matter, but that if it did, I wasn’t going to change his mind. I knew this from the very beginning of our marriage. Submission is something I give, not something I am made to do; that’s called slavery. SUBMISSION means to make the decision work when you don’t agree with it. One has to disagree in order to submit. We have had very few disagreements in forty-three years. I married a man I could easily submit to, and have known which battles to pick.

6. I didn’t date someone I would not marry. I wanted a man who was capable of being the spiritual leader of my family. Therefore, I dated only five people. Quickly I knew that Phil was the right man. We met in September and were engaged in April. We dated twenty-one months before we were married.

7. The word DIVORCE has never been in our vocabularies, not before nor since we’ve been married. Because we know that divorce is not an option, we work to make it work. A marriage will not last “til death do you part” if BOTH partners are not committed to each other and making it work.

8. We’ve remained committed. Commitment keeps us together when passion fades, health turns into sickness and pleasure turns into pain; when plenty becomes want and happiness gives way to depression. Commitment makes one fight for his marriage, rather than fight against his mate.

9. We’ve made our relationship a priority, second to our relationship with God. Our priorities look like this: God, Spouse. Children. We’ve always loved our children, but they’ve never controlled our household nor have they made our decisions. Phil always told them (yes he did) that the house was ours, they just lived there. We loved them immeasurably, and still do, but they’ve never imposed on our relationship. The greatest gift a father can give his children is to love their mother. David came to us at nineteen and said he wanted to marry Kelly. Phil suggested he was extremely young. But David said that he knew how to have a happy marriage because he had had our example to follow.

10. We’ve lived a simple life. Our children knew they could only participate in one activity per year at school. We stressed family time over extracurricular activities. Are extracurricular activities wrong? Absolutely not. We simply had different hobbies and interests that we enjoyed. Phil and David fished while Laura and I were “good shopper girls.”

11. Contrary to what’s stressed today, we live by the rule “good enough.” If it’s good enough for us, then it’s good enough. Phil reminded David and Laura, while standing in the middle of Goody’s store, that Goody’s was Goody’s not Besties and Goody’s was good enough. I have bought designer clothes at boutiques. I have bought generic from Walmart. I’ve bought expensive purses. I’ve bought cheap. Being able to have more also means having the ability to say yes to less and be content. Dot, my MIL insisted we take mini vacations every 4-8 weeks. We would go to Owensboro to the Executive Inn while she and Bill would voluntarily keep the kids at home. I think this, to me, is why I like celebrating our anniversary in Owensboro. It’s not far away, and there’s little to do except be with each other. No frills, just lots of memories.

12. We know what’s important. Sunday, on Mother’s Day, David, Kelly, Zac, Laura, Brody, Bella and Phil and I ate lunch at Hardee’s. Together. As a family. Simple. Good enough. Mother’s Day was a microcosm of mine and Phil’s relationship. This world is not our home. That which is seen is temporal. That which is invisible is eternal. The best is yet to come. This is the journey, not the destination. Love until you get there!

And that’s how to stay married…..Happy Anniversary Teresa and Phil! (43 years!)