After 28 tumultuous years, one of our favourite couples debriefs on the challenges they’ve faced and the love that’s (mostly) held them together.
Alison Almost 28 years and counting. I have been married now for well over half my life. True, compared to my parents-in-law, who just clicked over 57 years, it’s still early days. Yet with divorce rates on an incline, the longevity of our marriage is something I am really proud of.
Have our 28 years been the cliché, ‘happily married’? What even is ‘happily married’? For many, it’s the idea that fights are non-existent, sex is plentiful and you want to be together every minute. If this is your marriage, congratu-bloody-lations! May at the end of your lives you fall asleep in each other’s arms, take your last breath and be buried together. For the rest of us, or at least for me and Cam, there are times when we argue, we don’t like each other for a day and to save our sanity, we need time apart. I’m totally cool with all of it.
Okay, so I don’t love the fighting part, though we are fair fighters – we never name call or say something so hurtful you just can’t ‘unhear’ it. At the resolution of our fights we almost always realise we could have nipped it in the bud much earlier, and use the experience to not make the same mistakes the next time. This took many years of attempting and failing, finger-pointing and tears, and yet we can still tie ourselves up in knots over the tiniest things.
When we first met at the age of 20 and 25 our connection was, to use the Fire Danger Rating scale, catastrophic. I literally melted into Cam – a love so intense he walked on water in my eyes. That’s how I tend to fall in love with people and things. The only trouble with catastrophic love? It’s a long way to fall if it all goes wrong; the heartbreak feels like death.
Our marriage has been through many deaths, but most importantly, many rebirths. That’s why we’re still together.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 2019 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 2019 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Hitting a nerve
Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes - could aid physical and mental wellbeing.
Take me to the river
With a slew of new schedules and excursions to explore, the latest river cruises promise to give you experiences and sights you won’t see on the ocean.
The last act
When family patriarch Tom Edwards passes away, his children must come together to build his coffin in four days, otherwise they will lose their inheritance. Can they put their sibling rivalry aside?
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.
The wines and lines mums
Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.
Jenny Liddle-Bob.Lucy McDonald.Sasha Green - Why don't you know their names?
Indigenous women are being murdered at frightening rates, their deaths often left uninvestigated and widely unreported. Here The Weekly meets families who are battling grief and desperate for solutions.
Growing happiness
Through drought flood and heartbreak, Jenny Jennr's sunflowers bloom with hope, sunshine and joy
"Thank God we make each other laugh"
A shared sense of humour has seen Aussie comedy couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall conquer the world. But what does life look like when the cameras go down:
Winter baking with apples and pears
Celebrate the season of Australian apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the midwinter blues away.
Budget dinner winners
Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of low-cost recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.
