Divorce

I was thinking this afternoon and I realized that my dad and my stepmom are the only people in my family to be divorced (not counting my mother's side...then the numbers change a lot).

My grandmother lost her first husband to war, but then she and my grandfather were together until his heart gave out, at least 25 years later. Their marriage was never happy, but they stuck it out together.

My aunt, my dad's sister, and my uncle (who was discharged from the hospital this week) have been married...forever. I'm pretty sure it's been at least 40 years. Their daughter has been married 14 years. My dad's brother never married, but has been seeing the same woman since before I was born (she's a Jehovah's witness, and he's not, so they can't marry under her religion).

My stepmom's parents were married for at least 40 years when her father died, having suffered a stroke some years earlier. I'm not sure how long my aunt, my stepmom's sister, was married before her husband died of a brain tumor, but it was at least 12 years.

My dad and my stepmom will have been married for 15 years in May, and have been together about 7 years prior to getting married.

It's weird to think about being with someone that long, about everything that changes, in yourselves, in the marriage, and in the world, over a long period of time. I hope that we're as lucky as most of my relatives have been.