This month I celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary. I know that many of my friends were in awe of someone who had stayed married that long. In truth, so am I. This was never a love-at-first-sight story and our commitment to one another over these four decades is due in part to our backgrounds and to our desire to make whatever we had work for us.

When I met this man I had been recently divorced and badly shaken by the entire episode. I didn't ever want to put myself in this type of situation again but there was my future husband just being a very sweet guy. He loved my daughters. He was clean, quiet and had a job. He was ready to get married and I said yes because on the scale that measures bad habits against virtues, he tipped to the virtuous side.

In due course we added to our family, worked side-by-side seven days a week, built a home, and loved our children. I felt lucky that I had married a man who would attend church on Sundays and had some sort of spiritual and moral compass. It was the glue that held us together during tragedies and trials. Believe me, every couple will face these potholes during marriage, but if you choose to work together rather than against each other, you will eventually work through.

We two were completely different from one another in most respects. He was raised on a Montana wheat farm by lovely parents in a close community. Alcoholics in Los Angeles raised me. He was football; I was opera and ballet. He was conservative and I was out going and social. He liked hamburger and I tended toward sushi. Today I watch some sports and he eats everything. We compromised and found the experience workable.

My husband is a many decade practicing alcoholic. I am the child of alcoholics and rarely drink, not because I can't, but because I don't like the taste. I am the clear head and he is not. I wish things were different, but they aren't and for me to toss him out would be a last ditch effort I am not prepared to make. I have learned from this part of my marriage that when things aren't good, you really do have to do one day at a time.

Our common goals, despite it all, are to remain faithful to one another. I care for my husband's needs and he does whatever he is capable of on any given day. We have a long history of great times and some not so good. Nevertheless, we are a couple and have a better than average chance of staying together until one of us closes our eyes in death.

Is it easier the longer you are married? Maybe it is because there are usually no new tricks in old dogs. But on the other hand, you see your prospects narrowing and realize that what you see in front of you may be all that you will get. You gave up your dreams of white horses and knights a long time ago. On the other hand, my comely maideness walked out the door awhile back. Now I commit to clean, well groomed and putting a good dinner on the table every night. Food usually outlasts sexy.

In a word, commitment is the key to a long and happy marriage. Even if you can't stand that person from time to time, nobody ever gets to have the joyousness of newly minted love all of the time, nor, mercifully, will you dwell in the seventh concentric circle of Hell for eternity either. I like the expression, "this too shall pass". It has carried me through times when I've been thumbing through the yellow pages for a divorce lawyer.

Four children, forty years and half a dozen wonderful grandchildren are my personal legacy to a commitment I made and still honoring today. Nobody ever said it would be easy.