How to Stay Married for at Least Twenty-five Years

“A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short,” according to French essayist and author Andrew Maurois in his 1942 memoir. But this is still true even though most twenty-first century relationships seem like brief emails rather than long conversations.

August 2008 marks thirty years since I met my husband Glenn, so our long conversation is still a work in progress. We met on a job interview when I took a job for an LA music manager. Glenn was using an office in the manager’s suite to finish writing a novel inspired by his years as a rock and roll roadie. I’d just ended a brief but intense romance and had sworn off relationships for a while when I took this new job. Ironically, I found love anyway as our paths suddenly crossed.

Glenn had just returned to LA after building a house for a friend in Oregon and getting divorced from a ten-year marriage. He spent those years mostly on the road touring with superstar bands like The Stones and Elton John while his first wife stayed home in Pennsylvania buying antiques with his paychecks. Although it took him ten years to leave the marriage, which he admits was doomed from the start, it hadn’t soured him on long-term relationships. In turn, I’d survived a series of live-in relationships and short-term romances.

Our long conversation began during my first week on the job as we discovered significant things in common: we’re both writers and we were both seeking long-term attachments rather than just romantic love. When Glenn moved in with me a week after we met, it felt easy and comfortable. Nearly thirty years later, it still does.

When we celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, I asked my friends who also had long-relationship friends what has kept them together to see if what’s worked for us was also what worked for them. Here’s what I learned:

1. Keep each other laughing—Glenn’s boyish sense of humor keeps me laughing even when he doesn’t intend to. When he tries to make me laugh on purpose, it’s usually to lighten me up when I’m angry or when I think he should do something “my” way. Telling bad jokes works in a pinch, but good jokes work even better.