Forty years… it sounds more like a prison sentence than it does a wedding anniversary. “That’s right Max and Cathy, your sentence is 40 years to life”. Forty Years… That’s how long Cathy and I will be married on Saturday, June 16th.

It’s not so hard to look at Cathy’s face now and see the sixteen year old girl I started dating in 1972. We were so young. It didn’t feel like we were young at the time, but looking back, my God. All of that future together, and we didn’t yet realize it. Maybe we started to sense it when I left for West Point. I still have the letter she handed me that day, making me promise not to open it until I was in the car and on my way east –

“……Next year is going to be hard on us, but I have a strong feeling that we’ll make it….when it starts getting hard or you feel down, or something goes wrong just remember that I love you….”

She was talking abut my first year at West Point, but the words turned out to be a covenant for our next four plus decades together.

We’ve had mostly good times over the past forty years, but we’ve also had our share of challenges and hard times. There has been “better and worse, richer and poorer, and sickness and health”. In times of trouble, Cathy has been my rock and my strength. We’ve dealt with illnesses, separations due to military deployments, family deaths, tough times at work, people telling us what a marriage should look like, and any number of other challenges both big and small. We needed to learn how to make our marriage work through all of that and we did.

Over the past few years, as we’ve achieved “senior marriage status”, folks have asked me “What’s the secret? How do you make marriage a success?” I’m usually a bit dumbstruck by the question, because I don’t know the answer. Having said that, there are two things I do know. First, marriage takes constant work. Second, you have to figure out what will make your marriage a success. Not what makes generic marriage a success, or what will make someone else’s marriage a success, or your friend’s marriage a success, but what will make your marriage a success. It may be something quite different from what works for other couples. You have to decide what is best for you two, and I don’t think anyone else can tell you that.

When anniversaries happen, it’s easy to look to the past and remember the good times you’ve had. On this anniversary, what I’m really excited about is our future together, and what new promises, joys and challenges await us. I know there will be family, old and new friends, adventures, challenges, and yes, heartache and sadness. Our future together starts tomorrow, and I can’t wait to continue this wonderful partnership.

I love you honey…..