Growing Old Together

LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things.

Isaiah 25:1

HOLLYWOOD ACTOR AL PACINO ONCE TALKED ABOUT ATTENDING A FRANK Sinatra concert in the early 1980s. When he arrived, he discovered that the opening act featured the legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich. Suddenly, it dawned on Al that Buddy was in his sixties—and he was going to play the drums? Al confessed, “I’m thinking, now I’m going to sit here and listen to him drum for a while and twiddle my thumbs until Frank Sinatra comes out.”

And then something totally unexpected happened. Buddy Rich sat down and pulled sounds, rhythms, and cadences out of that set of instruments the likes of which Al Pacino had never heard. He sat mesmerized, confessing that Buddy Rich “transcended what I thought he was gonna do tenfold. And it became this experience.”

Rich amazed the entire audience. Everyone stood up in unison and started screaming, at which point Frank Sinatra came out and said, “You see this guy drumming? You know, sometimes it’s a good idea to stay at a thing.”^a

Sometimes it’s a good idea to stay at a thing.

Persevering in a marriage creates something that nothing else can match. A deep marriage takes time to build, as well as tremendous effort, but something about a love that has endured surpasses even the thrill of newly discovered affection and infatuation. Pop culture likes to celebrate the couples who have just met and can’t keep their hands off each other, who talk baby talk incessantly and practically smother each other with their affection. But Lisa and I have developed a much greater appreciation for those couples in their sixties and seventies who have all but melted into each other.

A study in Social Psychology Quarterly found that the happiness of most couples declines somewhat for the first twenty years of marriage, but those who make it to their thirty-fifth anniversary find themselves as happy with each other as they felt when they were newlyweds.^b Why is this so? Romance in the early years of marriage quickly gets assaulted by unmet expectations, the duties of child rearing, financial concerns, and the busyness of life. But during that emotional winter, unseen roots sink deep into the ground, ready to produce a fruit that a new but untested love can never match. A certain intimacy begins to develop, provided we don’t kill it with divorce.

Those who make it to their thirty-fifth anniversary find themselves as happy with each other as they felt when they were newlyweds.

I see this in my parents, and I see it in couples I don’t even know. You’ve seen them too—in their seventies or eighties, frail creatures physically but strong in love, who walk together as a unit. They’ve become one in almost every sense of the word—in the way they order their hamburgers, find a table, eat their lunch, and walk back to their car. They have perfected the dance, and every step comes in unison.

People who flit from relationship to relationship as their infatuations lead them aren’t really happy; they’re desperate—and they’ll never find what they’re looking for as they allow their desperation to bury potential life partners. There is no perfect “soul mate,” either for them or for us. There will be only sinner after sinner after sinner.

But when you learn to accept and love one particular sinner over several decades, you can slowly build an alliance and intimacy that nothing else can match.

Love doesn’t have to slowly fade away like a snowman on a warm day. It can grow like an avalanche in power and force, picking up strength along the way.