I like to think about what our marriage will look like in the future. After 40 years of marriage, I think a marriage would be pretty solid.

The recent separation of Al and Tipper is a good reminder that you can’t take your marriage for granted.  Ever.

People providing commentary on the pending divorce say that even though divorce after so many years together is a small percentage of total divorces, numbers are on the rise. Assuming the divorce isn’t due to infidelity (I’ll believe them for now), the experts are using words like growing apart, disengagement, distance and isolation. They attribute it to longer life spans and the increasing public acceptance of divorce.

Total crap. I don’t know where these people who make up commentary get their so-called expertise, but they definitely aren’t seeing what I think is clear.

I firmly believe people stop investing in their marriage because they start investing in something they think is more important – themselves. It’s a gigantic case of selfishness.

One of the most unselfish people I know, C.M.(an extraordinary wife and mom of two young boys),  recently posted on Facebook that she was meditating on 1 Corinthians 10:24. “Don’t think only of your own good. Think of others and what is best for them.”

I know that we will hit difficult times during the next 40 years. We will have times when we don’t feel like we are in love. We will have days when we can’t get back in touch with the feeling we had on the day we got married. But that’s okay because we are committed. We are both committed to something bigger than ourselves (that would be God).

And day by day, over the next 40 years (and beyond), He will teach us how to continue to die to self and put others first. With God’s help, that’s the only way we will make it that long.