My Husband is the love of my life.

"Famous actor seeks divorce !"................."Famous actress seeking $20,000,000 payout and wants to keep the dog."................."Mr and Mrs everybody splitting - up. Battle over custody of the cat and the lawnmower. !!!""

O K These are not real headlines but don't we see this TYPE of headline once too often these days. ?

Forget the newspapers, magazines, and t.v. reports. Just look around your own neighbourhood or sometimes sadly your own family. "Till death us do part" does not have the meaning it once had. The reasons are many and varied. People getting married in the 21st century are living in a seriously different world from the one people were married into 50 years ago. It's not unusual for someone to marry, divorce, remarry and sometimes divorce again..

It was heartbreaking for us as parents to watch our son's marriage unfold and fall to pieces. Three children involved, our beautiful grandchildren. So much pain. Only a few years later we watched our daughter go through the same process. Thankfully there were no children involved this time, but she still carried the pain of 2 miscarriage of very much wanted babies.................I wondered what I'd done wrong for both of my children to feel he need to divorce. (Is it a 'mum' thing?, I was so convinced it must have been my fault somewhere along the line of their upbringing)..

I know that my husband and I are not perfect or anywhere close to being perfect, although we tried hard to work through many of the problems that cause divorce with lots of people., Thankfully we won . I can only think that a major factor in our togetherness after 40 years is that we are both very tolerant of each-others shortcomings and we laugh a lot. If we didn't laugh in the crazy world that is modern life, I think we'd cry.. Laughing is better. It's good for your health.

Recently we were laughing at a memory from many, many years ago. we'd taken a trip to Paris, France. Just recalling the events made me feel as young as I was at the time, though a little too much vin rouge ordinaire means we could do with going again for one particular sightseeing trip. We'd been having a nightcap at the hotel bar when most people had left. We recognised one man as an actor from a British t.v. series. He had a few friends with him and as we were the only Brits around he asked us to join him. Nothing wrong with a few bottles of wine between fellow countrymen and talking late into the night ....except...........when you are booked onto a coach leaving the hotel at 9. 0 a m and I'm looking at the clock at 4 0 a m trying to persuade my husband that we should cancel the day-trip,.. or go to bed, like, NOW.

Oh boy !!! It was July, there was a heatwave in the area and my wonderful fun-loving, loopy husband insists we'll be fine. Ouch !Heatwaves in cities and a coach full of tourists don't go well with hangovers.. Try not to be sick, dear, oh! my head. The destination was a few miles outside Paris, The palace at Versailles.. It was beautiful but I couldn't really appreciate the splendours when all I really wanted to do was drink lots of water and go to bed. So , all these years later we're thinking of the bits we can remember. , The incredible Hall of mirrors. A must see if you ever are in Europe and we laugh at ourselves.

When times have not been such fun or no fun at all, downright horrendous, my husband has been my rock. He's stuck with me through a nervous breakdown, worked long hours when I took care of his bedridden mother and our 2 children .Not to mention financial ups and downs. Millions of families go through these type of problems every day. Many marriages feel the strain. We did too., but we were blessed with the kind of love that drew us together when times were tough. If you can do that, it is so, so worth it.

When I see an 18 year-old girl now, I always think she looks incredibly young to even be thinking of marriage, but that's partly because I'm so much older (all the policemen look like young boys to me too, my dad said that was a sign of old-age creeping up on you)

Only yesterday I found a torn, really old piece of paper forgotten at the back of a draw. The date on it showed that I was 18 when I'd written it.....It read......

If I can sit and grow old with you, ignoring the human rat race,

then I have found the love of my life.

I won't bore you with the following 3 sloppy verses but I'm sure you get the picture. I have a fridge magnet that says "grow old with me, the best is yet to come"

Not too sure about "best yet to come, since we are now like creaking doors every time we stand up. Getting out of bed is like climbing a mountain.. My wonderful husband does all the cooking, partly because he enjoys it but mainly to save me pain in my arthritic hands.

A young man shouted, swore and argued with my husband outside our front door------ all over a parking space.. We thought if we go in and close our door it will be forgotten. It was so trivial.But within minutes the young man had climbed over 3 walls to get to the back of our apartment, the patio doors were open, he was IN.

3 or 4 inches taller than my husband and waving a hammer over his head. The thug obviously thought he could overpower an 'old man' in his 60s. He hadn't bargained on the spirit and guts that are still inside 'my man' whatever his age. The young man was forcibly pushed out through our doors and onto a low wall on our balcony. I was terrified he'd fall the 20 ft drop and my husband would get the fault.

By this time, thankfully, the crazy boys' brother had jumped over the walls to retrieve his brother, asking us please to not press charges as his brother had 'problems'. "Yes, dear I can see he has problems, , the pupils of his eyes are enormous and he's staring straight through me. I may seem ancient to you but I'm a flower child from the 60s I know "stoned" when I see it. !" The brother hauled the nutcase away.

My husband by now was sitting with a brandy taking deep breathes. He's done it again, I thought to myself. After all these years he's physically defended me the way he used to in bars when we were young, if ever someone was paying me too much attention and overpowering me, he'd come flying seemingly out of nowhere in the crowd and give the silly would--be Don Juan the fright of his life. (not good really is it?, but does make me laugh, still)

So how could I not still love this man. Haven't quite worked out why he still loves me. I only hope that more and more young people will think of marriage as something for life.., not temporary till things get a bit sticky or someone else catches their eye. I feel sure they would be so much happier as I am with the Love of My Life. Hobbling into old age together. Well that's what I wanted isn't it according to the 40 year old poem I found.