Congratulations

At Beebo's football game yesterday, I overheard the woman next to me talking about how it was her parents' 35th wedding anniversary. Her parents arrived at the game shortly thereafter and the couple she had been talking with said, "Congratulations!"

This struck me as weird. At first congratulations just didn't seem appropriate for an anniversary wish. I think of 'congratulations' as the right word for weddings, graduations, promotions, new babies... you know, at the start of something new or upon a great accomplishment. So I started thinking, is that really how we view successful years of marriage - an accomplishment?

Maybe we should put more weight on it and view it as an accomplishment. After all, statistics speak for themselves: 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages in the U.S. end in divorce (according to the CDC). Maybe we've gotten to those statistics by viewing the wedding as the accomplishment, but not the marriage. I think too many people view marriage as an event in their life. In reality, the wedding is the event and marriage is a lifetime accomplishment.

Realistically, it becomes even more of an accomplishment if you look backward. I think the phrase "til death to us part" became part of the traditional wedding vow in 1662. Was staying together until death a great feat? Life expectancy was short. Plagues and war took many lives, and nearly 50% of women died in childbirth. Therefore, promising to stay together until death was a fairly safe bet. 'Til death do us part' today could mean upwards of 60 years. That's a lot of years of toenail clipping and dirty laundry!

Marriage is work - sticking out those annoying habits of someone else is hard. Harder still is seeing your own annoying habits in the mirror that is your spouse. But, just like with any job you work hard at, the returns usually outweigh the effort. So I guess instead of saying 'Happy Anniversary', I'm going to start saying 'Congratulations!' every year and totally mean it.