53 YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY - 29 SEPTEMBER, 2021
We have been aboard So...fea one month shy of five years... this is the longest time span (ever) for us to stay under one roof, we met exactly one year before we got married, since that day, we have had 64 separate homesteads ... yes, we have moved 64 times !
From squalor to luxury, tent to VIP hotel suite, that averages out to around one residence every 9 months, so, you can remove stability and providing a secure base from the success formula for a long term marriage. To really appreciate the "ease" of all these moves... know that we took three dogs along on our honeymoon, and were never without hauling around a menagerie of critters in our lifestyle, including our two 50+ year-old daughters.
It is almost comical to retrace the number of sofas, refrigerators, vehicles, beer and beds that were consumed in these past 53 years of marital bliss, however, for whatever insecurity all of this may have brought, the standards and quality of our lifestyle, our neighborhood, safety, and "family" was always held quite high, in business, school, or publicly no one ever knew or suspected our mobile/ever changing home base situation, our hospitality and entertaining never changed.
Why ? is always the question... and it was all on me and my refusal to allow a corporate retirement plan to be my carrot to follow, or the fluctuating economy or recessions to funnel me away from independence... I remained an opportunist, worked as a free agent, and was "ready-to-go" to the next project for fully 35 years, even changing career paths 5 times to do so.
My mantra of "leisure time being the true indicator of wealth" was a secondary driver to the anti-retirement fund and "always ready to start" work ethics, so, in between assignments it was Holiday-time.
All of the above yielded a see-saw tempo of rich-poor, reclusive-social, VIP-peeon, stable-temporary and respected-disrespected as being both parents and neighbors, but in all of the moving and job following we amassed an incredible number of contacts, associates, and notoriety.
So, no advice... if you are not truly soul mates, and sharing of everything it doesn't work, money, lavish excess, and freedom of want has absolutely no bearing on keeping a marriage together, it is all about tempering each other, compatability and tolerance between two live-togethers, dual role sexuality while not losing identity, sharing, and arguing, crying, laughing together... at each other, and at the whole stupidity of marriage in the first place.