“Love? Above all things I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong – all you need is love!” ~ Moulin Rouge
It’s a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, there’s a cool yet refreshing bite to the air, and the leaves are starting to cover the pavements in all their autumn splendor. What makes this day even more special, is the fact that my parentals-in-law are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary today!
Since my Significant Other and I started dating over four years ago, they have accepted me into their hearts as a daughter, adding joy both joy and love to my life. They have been caring, supportive, down-to-earth… the list goes on and on. Their marriage is proof that you can live happily ever after – as long as you nurture your love, grow together as a couple through shared experiences (and, yes, hardships), accept that you’ll have your differences, make honesty and communication a priority… In a nutshell: if you love someone so much that you are willing to make mutual sacrifices, don’t take one another for granted, and work to make it last.
Marriage is hard work, dedication and perseverance – just like anything else in life. There are so many people who get divorced nowadays that it’s nice to find a couple (or couples, rather, since my parentals will also have been married for 30 years come the middle of the year) who have stuck together for so long and whose love is evident for those around them. [Okay, soppy little mini-rant over now!!]
So, to ‘celebrate’ what can be deemed as a lifetime of love, here are some quotations about marriage that just might serve as some food for thought…
“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” ~ Paul Sweeney
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin
“Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.” ~Author Unknown
“Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.” ~Michael Leunig
“An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.” ~ Author Unknown
“The highest happiness on earth is marriage.” ~ William Lyon Phelps
“Are we not like two volumes of one book?” ~ Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
“Love is not singular except in syllable.” ~ Marvin Taylor
“A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.” ~Andre Maurois
“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage”. ~ Martin Luther
“Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years”. ~ Simone Signoret
“One man by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world”. ~ Han Margolius
“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret”. ~ Henry Youngman
“The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent and it must be equal”. ~ Frank Pittman
“Married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.” ~ Chinese Proverb
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” ~ Dinah Craik
The Skinny on my Jeans (Genes) 