I believe a marriage can last forever. I feel you just have to work on it every day. I know people are going to jump down my throat for this, but I feel nowadays that a lot of people give up when the ***** hits the fan. It takes a lot of work to keep a marriage a float. Now I know that there are times that people get married to the wrong person or that drugs, alcohol, abuse happen after the fact, but those aren't the kind of marriages I'm talking about. They should definitely leave those.

I just suffered a stroke in May which led to heart surgery in June and right afterwards my wife had to do almost everything for me. I couldn't shower, I couldn't get dressed, I couldn't even feed myself. That's how bad it was. However, my wife stayed with me and she has said numerous times that she will help me for the rest of my life if I don't get better. We both took are vows of "through sickness and health till death to us part" serious. If the tables were reversed and I had to take care of her I would, even if it meant for the rest of our lives.

I dunno if hard times are what makes good times great because I know (even though I don't remember a whole lot pre-stroke) that we have had great times together even when there aren't hard times. Just being with the right person I think is what makes the good times great. My wife set up a trip late last month and paid extra for better seats to two concerts so I could make new memories since I don't really have any old ones anymore. So I guess in this situation a hard time (the stroke) did make a good time great because it was like seeing the bands (that we have seen before - or at least that's what she's told me) for the first time and she loved seeing the joy and excitement in me.