What Makes Marriages Last?

After three novels and five decades of marriage, I have a few things to say about long love. Not the falling into kind, but the staying in kind.

I’ve been following Daniel and Annie Anthony from their fiery courtship in the 1860s through grief, conflict, and endurance. My third book, Songs in the Night, comes out next winter. Writing The Dauntless Series has made me look differently at what a long marriage actually costs, and what it’s worth.

Courtship novels (aka most romance novels) have a built-in shape: two people moving toward each other, obstacles in the way, resolution at the end. I enjoy them because of  creative variations on this tried-and-true theme. The long marriage is harder to write because there is no chase, no uncertainty about whether they’ll end up together. We already know they do. So where does the tension come from? And the tenderness?

Three ways to make a marriage last

Here’s what I’ve figured out, both from writing Daniel and Annie and from a few decades of my own field research.

Long marriages speak in shorthand. A couple who’ve known each other for years don’t always stop to explain themselves. When Annie faces down an enemy in Born of This Fire, the cheeriness of her greeting to Daniel signals him not to charge in and rescue. Understanding immediately, he restrains himself.  No discussion, no argument.

Jon and I use a lot of shorthand in our conversations too. But I’ll be honest—sometimes communication really goes off the rails and we get into spats about who meant what. Apparently this is not unique!

Long relationships speak love through small physical gestures. Not grand passion, but gestures that say, “I see you. I care about you.” It might be through a hand on the back of a chair, a cup of coffee set down without being asked for, or the particular way one person adjusts the other’s collar. These gestures convey caring without sentimental words.

People who love each other tease. In Born of This Fire, Annie and Daniel have a rip-roaring argument that ends with him calling her a sunflower. For the rest of their days, that’s her nickname. And in the new book, he will call his firstborn “Maude-pie.”

Nicknames signal intimacy through private humor. In our family, our son is Big Thunder because we can hear him coming, and our daughter is Trouble because she loves pranks. (I won’t tell you what Jon and I call each other, because it would take a page to explain each one.)

Shared interests and causes act like glue. Daniel and Annie both devote themselves to abolition, free speech, and their community in Leavenworth. They both value solid family life. Couples who never have children often devote themselves to a pet. Empty-nesters like us know the name of every tree, shrub, and flower on their property. This form of love ages better than passion.

Two things that make long marriages bitter

Words can wound. Because longtime spouses know each other well, they know just where to place the knife. Those who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most. In Songs In the Night, Daniel comments to a guest that the piano he gave Annie far exceeds her skill to play it. This occurs after she has gotten out of practice while nursing him through a gunshot wound.

Personal disgrace taints the spouse (and family), too. One of the things I treasure about my husband is that he is, and has always been, a man of honor. I can trust him with my secrets, my finances, my reputation, and (most importantly) my children. However, this peace of mind did not always favor Annie Anthony, whose Daniel had a checkered past and whose hair-trigger temper landed him in jail and nearly got him killed.

Longstanding relationships that are marred by unkind words and tarnished reputations may feel more like a life sentence than a blessing.

As I plod through revisions on the concluding book in my trilogy, I’m weaving together strands that appear throughout the series—how my characters change and how they somehow manage to remain the same. Variations on a theme. It’s one of the challenges of writing the story of a long marriage*. . . .which may be why it’s taking me three books to tell it properly.

*Long marriages often embody a special kind of  love. And there’s a reason few writers create novels about this alternative to eros (passion). Find out in this podcast.

Curious to read more about Daniel and Annie’s marriage?

Get started with Secrets to the Wind for Daniel and Annie’s courtship story.

Or start the Dauntless series for free when you read the prequel novella Songbird in the Marsh, about a pivotal encounter that changed young teenage Annie’s life—and includes Daniel and Annie’s first meeting.