Success Analysis

For the success analysis, my grandparents from Bellevue, WA agreed to participate.  I look up to them as a wise couple and thought it would be interesting to gain their insights.  The following is more of a paraphrase of their responses rather than a transcript.

How many years have you been married?
-60 and 3/4 years.

How did you deal with differences of opinion in your marriage?
Pop:  We would argue about it and didn't keep anything back.  We had plenty of disagreements but it never came between us.
Grandy:  We usually forgot about it after a while.  It wasn't that important.

What kind of issues came up continually in the marriage?  A repetitive issue?
Grandy:  Money.
Pop:  In the early years when we were living on a shoestring, we had two kids to raise at that time.  We had "discussions," I'll call them, about what was important to spend money on.  So we differed in that opinion many times.  But, there wasn't that much money to be arguing about.  (Both laugh)
Me: Who wanted to spend the money?
Grandy:  (Shrugs).  I don't know...
Pop: (Chuckles and then both laugh).  Well, you ran the household.
Grandy:  Well I had to spend money on food.
Pop:  You were not a spend thrift, but sometimes I had to emphasize how low the bank account was before the next paycheck in those early days.
Grandy:  I could look and see on the bank statement and know what to do.
Pop:  I don't think we ever disagreed to much on raising the children.  You did most of that and did a great job.
Grandy:  Occasionally you had lots to say to them more so than I did about discipline.
Pop:  Yeah.

How did you deal with the persistent issue of money?
Pop:  Well, I grew in my job where we didn't have to worry about it so much.  (Grins).
Grandy:  But up until then we just did without and we didn't think much about it.  The kids didn't feel neglected and nobody went hungry.
Me:  So you did what you could to get by and then the problem took care of itself.
Grandy:  Yeah, that's it.
Pop:  Yeah good summary.

What are the strengths of your marriage, what do you see as strengths?
Grandy:  Well just being together all these years.  Sometimes it takes strength to do that.  (Laughs).
Pop:  A strength in our marriage is that we both came from very similar backgrounds of life in the rural community on the farm.  With the same background, values, and church there was never any issues over religion at all.  Having that frugal and hard-working background sustained us through our marriage.
Grandy:  We were brought up in the same kind of atmosphere as far as money went.  Mom and Dad struggled, struggled, and struggled sometimes just to get by.  My father would just poor over the books and think, "How are we gonna get through the next--" and if the crop didn't work out well we were in a worse mess.
Pop:  And instead of buying clothes for you and your sister, you made them.
Grandy:  My mother made everything!  Everything.
Pop:  I grew up in a family of two boys so my mom didn't sew things as much because boys wore blue jeans and that was about it.
Me:  So as far as the strengths in your marriage you see the religious aspect as a strength and not something you had conflict about.  And you came from a similar philosophy of life, work-ethic, and economic background.  Is there anything else you perceive as strengths?
Pop:  I think we both agreed early that Pat would be a homemaker and not work out of the house.  I soon progressed in my job to where we could live very comfortably.  She stayed home and raised the children and for that I think was a great benefit.  It was never an issue.
Grandy:  It was never an issue, but deep down I wished I could have gone to college and had a career of some sort, but it never bothered me that much.
Me:  So you guys agreed on gender roles and that type of thing.
Grandparents:  O yeah, absolutely.

What types of activities do you engage in in your free time together?  Now that you are both retired you have a lot of free time together!  So i guess look at it as before you were retired, what types of things did you do together and once you were both retired how did you spend your time together?
Pop:  Well when we were working, we always took time to take vacations.
Grandy:  Go home!
Pop:  Go home and see our parents.  And since both sets of parents lived in the same community that made it easier.  Since I was placed around to several different places (pop was in the air-force) we took vacations to see our family.  But then we did other things too even in the early days.
Grandy:  And I think that was the big start of our travels because we have traveled the world.
Pop:  But even in the early days when we lived in Alabama, we bought a pop-top trailer and traveled. We took the kids and camped out in the mountains and on the coast.  We always made sure to take our vacations.
Me:  Once you retired, apart from vacations, were there any particular activities you participated in together?
Pop:  No, we pretty much had our own activities.  I used to go pheasant hunting and you were in Sweet Adeline's and in a bridge group.  She had a bridge partner and they traveled all over the west and won tournaments, a big accomplishment.  We each maintained individual activities.
Me:  That was my next question!  You went pheasant hunting and you played bridge and were in Sweet Adeline's.  And I know from staying with you guys, Grandy you do a lot of crossword puzzles as well.
Grandy:  Yeah.
Me:  You watch the stock market a lot.
Pop:  The computer is my hobby.
Grandy:  yeeeesss.
Pop:  I have three computers and I keep them all up-tp-date with the latest software.  I put all our latest investment information on our computer.  I keep up with all our granddaughters on Facebook now.
Me:  You used to have your gardens too, that was an activity you did together.
Grandy:  OH yeah!  I ended up canning so much of it because he had so much.  We still do that out at the cabin (their vacation house).
Pop:  And church activities--a lot of them we did together.  For instance, Pat chaired almost all of the committees except for the property committees her whole life.  One year I was the property chairman.  I was also chairman of the board for one year.  We did a lot of church volunteer work.  In 1980 when the Vietnamese came over our church sponsored a family and she was the mother hen of getting them settled, helping them with all the government red-tape.  We've stayed in touch with that family to this day, been to their daughters wedding.  So that was an outreach activity she did with the church that was very valuable.

How do you guys express love to one another on a daily basis?
(Both look at each other with a grin).
Pop:  I don't know if I can make a statement.  (Looks at her).
Grandy:  Oh, put that down. (pointing to computer screen).
Pop:  Its mostly by osmosis rather than overt expressions.
Grandy:   Still it seems normal for us.
Pop:  We know we love each other and as we have become older I think we have been closer because we take care of each other.  On a daily basis we don't do a kissy-huggy thingy... there has just never been a question about our love for each other.
Me:  How do you know if she loves you?
Pop:  She's still with me after 61 years (chuckling).
(Grandy rubs his shoulder).
Me:  What does he do that tells you he loves you?
Grandy:  He says "I love you" more frequently than I do.
(some joking they did not want on here)

What sources of social support have you had?  Family, church, friends...
Pop:  Oh I'll give you one good example early in life.  I just got out of the air-force and I was going to school on the GI bill, we had an apartment, two young children, doctor bills, and no insurance in those days.  Our parents saw that we had plenty to eat because both lived on farms and butchered their own meat and grew gardens.  We were well fed.
Me:  Are there any other forms of social support you've had over sixty years?  If someone close died, who came in a supported you?
Grandy:  When our parents died there were all sorts of neighbors that were very helpful.  That was just the way community was.

What factors have strengthened your marriage?  You said a lot already about the way you grew up...
Grandy:  Yeah and our children all just turned out beautifully and that makes you happy in your marriage too.

How do you share your spiritual life?
Grandy:  We go to Sunday School and Church and it seems to be very spiritual for us.  Wherever we have lived, we always went to churches, its a part of our life.
Pop:  We supported each other in whatever activities were going on at the time.
Me:  So even if you weren't in it together, you supported each other.
Grandparents:  Oh yeah.

What do you wish you had known then that you know now?
Grandy:  Oh, let me see here.  How to be more respectful with my husband, especially over the little-nothings.
Pop:  Early in my career I wish I had known more about the investing piece.  As an engineer with a focused career that required long hours sometimes, we just didn't think about investments.  Although we are pretty comfortable today, I wish I had known about that a little earlier in my life.  We should have had a better financial plan when we had children because I got out of the air-force and went back to college.  It was a real challenge because I was taking a full load in engineering and holding three part time jobs.  She was caring for 2 littles ones at the same time.
Grandy:  I had always thought I would go to college.  There just wasn't any time for it.
Pop:  I guess I always kind of felt bad about that because she was valedictorian of her class and she would have done well in college, but I hooked her at a young age and then we had two children and then we got side tracked.
Grandy:  And then we had another surprise later on (one of my aunts). (Chuckles).
Pop:  None of our children today appreciate the stories about orange crate furniture and the children's mattresses on the floor.. they just didn't appreciate hearing that stuff. (Laughs).

After listening to their interview over again, I am reminded of some of the things talked about in class about successful marriages.  My grandparents use humor with each other and in remembering their tough times.  They also, especially Pop, express appreciation about the other persons accomplishments or personality.  They also seem to have a high degree of commitment because of their comments "It was never a question."  More than I would want to admit as a granddaughter, but from their response to the expression of love question, they still seem to have some passion.  Overall, I think their successes are evident just in the way they talk about their marriage and talk to one another.