My husband and I went out to dinner this weekend at an expensive restaurant in Georgetown to celebrate our 30th anniversary. With us were Jim and Dottie Tonkowich (Jim was managing editor of BreakPoint for four years, and is now president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy) and Mariam and March Bell. Mariam, of course, is our director of public policy.

The Tonkowiches and the Bells were also celebrating 30 years of wedded bliss, bringing our collective total to 90, and over a phenomenal dinner, we regaled one another with stories about how we met, how we each knew our intended was "the one," who received the nuttiest marriage proposal (Mariam), and how we managed to stay married during an era--the late '70s to the present--when so many other marriages went bust. The answers ranged from "intentionality" to "having a sense of humor." We all agreed that embracing the Christian view of marriage--that it's for keeps--had a good deal to do with our approach to our marital relationships. 

Interestingly, three of the six of us had been previously engaged and broke it off. And all of us were pretty young, by today's standards, when we tied the knot (age 20 to about age 23). 

That sense of humor, by the way, came in handy when the bill came. "I hope," my loving husband said, "we aren't going to do this for another 30 years..."

(Image © Jim Tonkowich)

Comments

[Chris Clukey]

Congratulations, Anne. Hope all of you make it to 225 collective years!