“I have never regretted marrying my wife. She is the best thing that ever happened to me.” …Conley Blough

Long happy marriages inspire me. With the divorce rate so high, half-century marital success is an alternate life style, and its stories warm my innards. In a 2007 coffee table book, I find two photos of Conley and Irene Blough smiling beatifically at me. In the 2007 photo, Conley’s hand is securely around Irene’s shoulder.
Irene wears the same friendly smile, jewel-neck pullover, and pearls in the 1946 and 2007 photos. In the 62 years between their marriage on November 28, 1946 and the book photo, dark hair has turned white and glasses adorn noses. Whoa! Conley and Irene are probably still alive and have been successfully married to each other for a lifetime.
Conley and Irene have maneuvered a marriage for all seasons of their lives. Their achievement exemplifies my conviction that marriage, like the calendar, begets recurring seasons. Serious illness feels like winter ice, new birth feels like the new springtime sun, and Thanksgiving feels like fall harvest.
I also think of the climates of marriage: abandonment is icy, backrubs are warm and sunny. And yes, marriage brings me moods: I can swing from the comfort of easy-coupled synchronicity to the crackly tension of marital cacophony from a single angry glance from my husband.
Just as each year brings my life ongoing changes in a pattern containing predictability, marriage brings me ongoing changes within the fairly predictable seasons of my life. I may wish my marriage to bring ongoing Valentine’s Days but, like everyone we know, I get stuck with the intermittent heartache of a rained out garden wedding.
In our lives, marriage repeats the themes of being consummately human…year after year after year…it grabs our hearts and our minds, spins us around until we can barely think straight. It drives our minutes, days, years, decades and the generations of our progeny. Because the volcanic power of marriage is awe inspiring, creating a marriage for all seasons may just be the single best decision we married mortals can make.
On January 10, 1991, before his 50th birthday, melanoma stole the man my 23-year-old heart had deemed “the love of my life.” Now what? As his ashes were strewn over the marshland waters near our beach cottage, my inconsolable grief screamed shrilly, “Now what?”
Had I wasted my time investing in my nearly 25-year first marriage? Was I to be permanently bereft? Was my first marriage gone forever? As time and grieving lifted the fog of bewilderment and sadness, I began to comprehend that the very marriage that was no longer actual had become my virtual model of a marriage for all seasons.
I carried that model deeply within me. I knew I could live it again and share it with others. From a Ph.D. in Human Development, 25-plus years helping clients and teaching and training academic colleagues, and 24 lively years of learning how to be married, I had internalized the very tools others wanted to learn…and the tools to create a new beginning with a yet unmet Man For All Seasons.
Now, 14 second-marriage years later, I enjoy and honor the seasons of both marriages. I invite you to honor the centrality of your marriage in your life. Make it the hub for your personal pleasure. Create your own marriage for all seasons. It just may be your greatest gift to your self.

Coche volunteers time to educate the public about mental health. She can be reached at jmcoche@gmail.com or 215- 735-1908.