I got this from Chicken Soup For The Soul in my mailbox today. This is what those who are feeling like they are in a dead marriage need to remember.............the "spark" might not always be there-but the love is! In my book I think it is just fine to get comfortable in a marriage. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did!<P> On Our Twentieth Wedding Anniversary<BR>I smile when someone defines bigamy as having one spouse too many and monogamy as being the same thing. Instead, I think of marriage as a lifetime communication adventure. It has certainly been that with my husband, Marty. <BR> <BR>Marty and I have been together for over twenty full, rich years. <BR> <BR>He is, I would say with complete affection, just an ordinary kind of guy, in a very down-to-earth way. For instance, recently I told Marty I was thinking of taking up painting. He glanced at me, and without missing a beat, asked: "Semigloss or latex?" <BR> <BR>That's Marty. <BR> <BR>I remember in the months before our twentieth wedding anniversary, I began to think about our marriage and wonder if, indeed, it was all it should be. Nothing was wrong, mind you. But there just didn't seem to be any "newness" in our relationship anymore. I remembered the long-ago magic of being in a new relationship – the excitement of meeting someone you didn't know anything about and slowly discovering all the adorable details of his personality; the joy of finding out what you had in common; the first date, the first touch, the first kiss, the first snuggle, the first everything. <BR> <BR>One morning, my well-worn husband and I were up early taking our customary walk of about four miles. Even though the scenery was beautiful, my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking about all the things that seemed to be missing after twenty years of marriage, and if, indeed, I was missing out on new things I should be experiencing. We had just reached the two-mile point in our walk, a shady spot where two cedar trees create a natural secluded archway above us. And as we were about to turn around, my husband reached over, took me in his arms and kissed me. <BR> <BR>I was so busy thinking about all the "new" things I was missing out on, his kiss totally caught me by surprise. <BR> <BR>And there in the middle of a hot, sticky, sweaty, exercise-panting kiss, I was suddenly flooded with an awareness of the cumulative gifts of twenty years of living with Marty. We had comforted each other through the deaths of three parents and two brothers. We had seen his son graduate from Virginia Tech. We had camped from Nova Scotia to the Canadian Rockies. We had shared songs with my family in Ireland one Fourth of July, and we had hiked along the Bay in Anchorage, Alaska. We had shared a lot of potatoes, a lot of surprises and a lot of life. <BR> <BR>I did not have this special level of sharing with any other human being – only with my husband. And right now, we were sharing something new. A walk, a sweet, safe, comfortable companionship that offered new love each day, and a kiss that had never happened before and would never happen again. This moment was new, as each moment always would be. <BR> <BR>That day, our twentieth anniversary took on a completely different meaning, one that has stayed with me every day since then – inside our oldest commitments can lie our newest celebrations. <P>By Maggie Bedrosian<BR>Reprinted by permission of Maggie Bedrosian © 1998, from Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Mark & Chrissy Donnelly and Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D.<P>------------------<BR>*heartache*<P>"Life's A Dance<BR>You Learn As You Go.<BR>Sometimes You Lead<BR>Sometimes You Follow!<BR>Don't worry 'Bout What You Don't Know<BR>LIfe's A Dance <BR>You Learn As You Go."<p>[This message has been edited by heartache (edited June 13, 2001).]
