Listening and Sharing Along the Way

By Cheryll L. Peterman

Like Keith and Janice Townsend, Tom and I have been married a long time—nearly forty-two years. We are rather an oddity. Because people tend to marry later than they used to, and many don’t stay married, fewer folks will ever know what it’s like to share their entire adult lives together. So why has marriage worked for us?

I remember, when dating, that I didn’t want to spend much time apart from this special person. The evening after our first date, I had a date with another young man, but had no desire to be with him. Something had clicked for me the night before that would never change.

Two years later, when Tom was leaving for Eastern Michigan University (we both lived in Flint, Michigan, at the time) to complete his degree, someone at church commented that perhaps we would now date other people. I could hardly stand the thought, but I finally summoned the courage to bring it up. We agreed that if we wanted to date someone else, we would let each other know. It never happened, and two years later we were married.

A desire to be with that one person more than with anyone else and in a more intimate way than with anyone else long ago sealed our fidelity. We had friends and enjoyed their company but we enjoyed our time together more. Whether on vacation or just daily, we preferred to be together. Friends were wonderful, but they were not our soul mates.

We met when I was fifteen and Tom was seventeen through church and school. Tom’s father had died the year before, and I came from a loving but dysfunctional family. We had responsibilities beyond our years and had to grow up quickly. So by the time I was twenty and he was twenty-two, we were ready for marriage. We chose a date before we even knew whether he would have a job, and I was only halfway through college. Many folks thought I’d never finish, but with the support of my new husband, I did.

In all these years, we have never fought or raised our voices to each other—we’ve had disagreements, yes; occasional irritability, yes. But fighting is unthinkable. Talking and listening has always been our method of working things out whether regarding fertility treatment, adoption, and pregnancy; whether to live in Iran for nine months (pre-Revolution); house and car purchases; how to spend our money; where to go on vacation; how many children to have and how to raise them; or the daily decisions everyone faces.

Life has brought growth, struggles, and transitions, within ourselves and our relationship. But it has been so much richer because our marriage bond has been strong and our love, reliable. We always saw marriage as a sacred bond between us as individuals, and between us and God. I am not holding us up as a lofty example, but only to testify of the blessings we have known. We have shared life through the church, and in service beyond it. We have mingled in both military and university settings and have not grown apart.

I wonder how I would handle being young today. Would I be more confident? Would I make the same choices? Would we have chosen each other? It’s impossible to say. There are countless circumstances that might have caused our marriage to turn out differently, but both of us embraced it as a life-long journey. We hope to continue that journey as we face the joys, sorrows, and challenges that yet lay ahead.