Fun Time: For A Long Marriage, Set Your Expectations Low
My wife, Malathi, and I have been married for more than 24 years, but that’s nothing compared to Manoel Angelim Dino and Maria de Sousa Dino. The Brazilian couple have been married for more than 84 years and recently set a Guinness World Record for the longest marriage for a living couple.To set such a record, you have to live a long time, so it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that both Manoel and Maria are centenarians. He’s 105 and she’s 101. They got married in 1940, seven years before India’s independence and 18 years before Brazil won its first World Cup.
Manoel was 21 and Maria only 17 when they got married, which means that for at least 80 percent of their lives, they’ve had someone by their side to love, comfort and help pay the rent.
They didn’t just have each other, of course. They also had 13 children, who eventually gave them 55 grandchildren, 54 great-grandchildren, and 12 greatgreat- grandchildren, all of whom can visit Manoel and Maria for some marriage advice.
With divorce rates rising around the world, it never hurts to get some tips from people who’ve been married a long time. I haven’t been married for that long (relatively speaking), but I’d nevertheless like to offer a few marriage tips:
- Have low expectations. This is very important. Give your partner a low bar that they can easily clear, unless you are marrying an Olympic pole vaulter. You may have set your standards very high before marriage, hoping to check all the boxes, but once you are married, you need to hide some of those boxes. Expecting too much from your spouse is a recipe for disappointment. And disappointment often leads to another D-word: divorce.
- Spend quality time apart. It’s important to spend quality time together, but it’s just as important to spend quality time apart. My wife sometimes goes on vacation with our children, while I stay at home with our dog, Lulu. This is really good for our relationship: Lulu’s and mine. It brings us closer. And it also gives my wife a healthy break from me (and vice versa).
- Be a loser. I don’t mean a loser in life, but a loser in arguments you have with your spouse. Don’t insist on being right all the time and winning every argument. Being an argument-winner may only make you a bigger loser, especially if your spouse kicks you out of bed.
- Have a poor memory. Try to forget all your arguments and any mistakes your spouse makes. Remember the positives, forget the negatives (within reason). This works both ways, of course. A husband forgets that his wife didn’t compliment his chicken curry but remembers that she finished it all. A wife forgets that her husband didn’t compliment her biceps (she’s been doing dumbbell curls) but remembers that on their last vacation he left the luggage for her to handle.
- Twist the truth. Being too truthful isn’t good for a relationship. When I ask my wife if I’m losing hair, she’ll say, “No, Melvin, you’re just gaining scalp.” When I ask her if she liked the meal I cooked, she’ll say, “It’s like nothing I’ve tasted before.” When I ask her if she wishes she had married someone else, she’ll say, “There is no one in the world other than Denzel Washington and Robert Downey Jr. I’d rather be with.”
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips, and more.]
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