Bob found this and printed it out to read to me at our anniversary dinner. I was looking for the source online since it says a Harvard study, but it only seemed to be on Facebook and Instagram? I decided it was worth sharing regardless of who first wrote it! We found these to be true for our marriage also.

1. A Harvard study of 724 couples who made it past 30 years revealed something surprising: what kept them together wasn’t love, s*x, or kids. It was the ability to tolerate the same things in each other—over and over again. The ones who divorced thought, “This habit drives me crazy, but I can fix it.” The ones who stayed accepted, saying: “This is who they are. They’re not changing.”

2. Long marriages rarely resolve every conflict. That’s a myth. Couples who lasted 30+ years didn’t dig forever into every hurt feeling. They learned to let go. Not suppress—but release. “You forgot again,” “You said the wrong thing again”—short-term couples turn that into a fight. Long-term couples let it slide. Because they chose peace over being right.

3 . The real skill of lasting couples? Quick emotional recovery. It’s not about never fighting. It’s about bouncing back fast. He snapped two hours ago—and now he’s hugging her. No pride. No “you go first.” In marriages that last, the winner isn’t the one who’s right—it’s the one who comes back first.

4. The strongest couples weren’t bonded by “we have everything in common”—but by “we face the world together.” A shared struggle: poverty, toxic relatives, building a business, even a shared hatred for the system. Anything that puts you on the same team—us vs. the world—builds the bond. Couples without an external pressure? More likely to crack from the inside.

5. And the biggest truth? Almost every long-term marriage had a point where they were ready to call it quits. Almost all of them. But they didn’t. Not because they couldn’t—but because they gave it more time. The most common answer: “I decided to do nothing. And six months later, things shifted.” Turns out, most marriage crises die off—if you just stop feeding them.

Certainly worth consideration! We had a delightful celebration and spent some of the time looking back in wonder and another part of the time planning where we would still like to travel! Then this song from long, long ago popped into my head.