Me and the President

Apart from the fact that we are both Democrats, and that I agree with a lot of his ideas, Barack Obama and I also have one other thing in common - we both got married during the first week of October.

Barack and Michelle got married on October 3, 1992, which means that TODAY is their 23rd anniversary. In view of the fact that 48% of the marriages in America last less than 20 years, that’s a pretty remarkable achievement.

According to Michelle, the secret to their longevity is not to sweat the small stuff, which seems to be pretty good advice for the rest of us as well.

If you’ve read “Why Men don’t listen, and Women Can’t read Maps” (Barbara and Alan Peace) or pretty much any other relationship book, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that men and women shouldn’t be able to live with each other at all.

If you’re interested in statistics, here’s a few facts that you might find interesting:

1) The more education that you have, the more likely you are to stay married

2) You’re far more likely to divorce if you live in a “red” state. All of the states in the top 10 for divorces are “red” states, and Nevada is on the top of the list.

3) The younger a person is when they get married, the more likely they are to get divorced

4) Iowa (the locale for the affair depicted in the “Bridges of Madison Country“ ) has the lowest divorce rate in the country

5) Arkansas has the highest rate of individuals who have been married 3 or more times, but 67% of the Republicans in America believe that gay marriage will destroy the “sanctity of marriage”. If you’ve been paying attention lately, though, you’ll know that Tide detergent can SAVE the sanctity of marriage:

leave it to Tide

Sharon and I got married on October 6, 1972, which means that we’ll be celebrating our 43rd anniversary this coming Tuesday, and a few of our friends are rapidly approaching their golden anniversary.

There really isn’t any magic formula for staying married a long time, but I still maintain that having a good belly laugh together on occasion seems to work as well as anything else.

I occasionally still fall asleep in a chair after having one too many glasses of wine, and Sharon occasionally goes shopping when she shouldn’t, but I totally agree with Michelle Obama - don’t sweat the small stuff, and you’ll get along just fine.