Courtship Never Ends

Lots of people think Courtship is for dating, but it isn’t true: Courtship is for life and it never ends.

Meet Russ and Pat

Russ and Pat were married at an early age in 1958. They have been married now for sixty-four years. You read that right, for sixty-four (64) years they have been married. Once they stopped me to share a little of their story, and it was so good, I had to share.

About three or four years into their marriage (remember they married really young) they started to grow apart. Pat shared that she was very demanding, expectations were high, and Russ wasn’t living up to them. Russ was getting frustrated and admitted that their relationship had grown rather toxic. After about four years they decided to call it off.

In those days, the early 1960’s, there was no such thing as “no-fault divorce.” One party had to sue the other party in order to end the marriage. It was a rather shameful thing in those days, and yet even despite the shame and guilt, they decided to divorce anyway. They filed and began the paperwork.

On they day they appeared before the judge Pat looked at Russ and said, “I’m not letting you divorce me. You married me, you’re stuck with me.” She picked up her papers and left.

A few weeks later, I imagine Russ was a bit dumbfounded and it took him a little while to get over the shock, Russ called Pat to try and patch things up. He was interested in trying to put their marriage back together (although Pat really left him no other option). To this, Pat responded, “if you want to have a relationship with me, you have to date me again.”

[Let me just say, I love these two. Pat is a firecracker if ever there was one.]

Russ committed and they started going on a few dates. Pat, for her part, kept her distance. In her words, “he needed to earn my affections again.”

He did. For them, it was his commitment to court her again in their marriage that made all the difference. They admit that it took time for them to ‘get things right’ to learn how to live marriage better between them. They learned how to give and take, negotiate their differences, and appreciate the time together and the time apart.

The other thing that made all the difference? Russ never stopped courting Pat.

Courtship never ends. We’d do well to make sure we remember it!