Who doesn’t enjoy a good love story? Of all the Valentine’s Day stories from last week none was more touching to me than the story of Albert and Nettie Klein, residents at Brookdale’s River Bay Club in Quincy, Massachusetts. Nettie and Albert are both 94 years old-and they have been together for 82 years. They met each other on Valentine’s Day when they were 12, fell in love and never dated anyone else "not one time" according to Albert. They are still in love with each other, exchanging Valentine cards, kissing and expressing gratitude for their love and life together.
In spite of the statistics on marriage - approximately half end in divorce - most of us still long for our own love story. And it turns out that marriage is good for us. Numerous studies have demonstrated its health benefits. Men have a slightly higher benefit, but both men and women live longer and have better health habits if they are married.
Dr. Karl Pillemer, a professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, and Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College, interviewed more than 1,000 older Americans, many of them Brookdale residents, through his Legacy Project. Pillemer and his team gathered the wisdom of older adults about love, life and aging well.
His findings are eloquently communicated in his book entitled 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. One of the topics that Pillemers "experts" discussed was how to have a happy marriage. Dr. Pillemer condensed their responses into common themes and ideas. On the topic of marriage the experts seemed to agree on five points:
- Marry someone a lot like you. While we often say that opposites attract, over time this can wear on a marriage. Couples who have similar values and interests have more harmony.
- Friendship is as important as romantic love. Many of Pillemer’s experts said you should marry someone who is your friend, who you enjoy being with.
- Don’t keep score. Marriage is a give and take proposition and sometimes circumstances will call for one partner to give more than the other. Happy couples don’t expect the give and take to be tit for tat, but understand that each gives what they need to at the time.
- Talk to each other. Communication is important to keep a marriage alive and on the right track. I recently read that couples who have a regular date night where they sit and talk have better sex lives.
- Don’t just commit to your partner, commit to marriage itself. Most of Pillemer’s experts said they had gone through some tough times, but had stayed together because they respected the institution of marriage. This commitment forced them to work things out and come out better on the other side.
- Pillemer also points out that many of the couples repeated the commonly held marriage rule that couples should never go to bed angry. As one put it "you never know what will happen during the night."
And then there is Albert Klein’s rule for marriage - "please your spouse and you please yourself". After 82 years of happiness with the same woman, he should know.
Be Well on Purpose