On Long-Lasting Marriage

It was Valentine's Day a couple of days ago, and on my Facebook status, I posted this:

Met my Valentine when I was a college freshman. Married him at 19, the summer after my sophomore year (he'd just graduated). Two adult children and two wee grandchildren later, we're still together. And I'm very happy about that. A life filled with shared memories, some joyous, some very difficult, but always together. You can't buy that anywhere.

One of the first responses I received was from someone a generation younger than me, who I had known a very long time. She believed that our (my husband's and my) marriage was a "Notebook"-style love that she has only seen in my generation, not her own. (Side note: "Notebook" is a somewhat cheesy, sentimental film based on an equally cheesy, sentimental book by Nicholas Sparks, but certainly the theme of love that does not wane from youth into old age and I-can't-live-without-you-if-you-die-I'll-have-to-die-too is there.)

I thought about her response for several hours, then wrote this back to her:

I hate to disillusion you, but I think there's no such thing as "Notebook"-worthy love except in the movies. Love is hard, and it takes commitment, and it's not always romantic, and it has its periods of dark anger and wishing life were different, sometimes bordering on a willingness to betray and back away -- and then you pray, and you try to start over with each other, but meanwhile the shared history helps cement you as does the love you share for your children, as do financial realities, as do the vows you made before God. And you press forward, and you get it done, and you look back many years later and are grateful it turned out this way, that you did indeed hang in there.

Oh...and getting away together on a vacation, fabulous! A rejuvenation, a renewal, positive happy shared energy. See the world with your enduring friend. You'll never regret it. It will keep you perpetually falling in love all over again. Laugh until you snort, and be amazed together, stand in awe together. Greet new cultures and new people (and new food) with grateful open-heartedness. All of these things bind you into a long-lasting couple.

I don't know any profound secrets. All I know is that it's easier to walk holding hands than not.

Does anyone else have thoughts on how to make a marriage long lasting, or on how not to kill each other before you get the opportunity to reflect back?