How to Stay Married in Midlife

This past June marked my thirty-third anniversary and my husband gifted me with an Amethyst ring, necklace, and earrings (because Amethyst is the traditional stone to mark the thirty-third  year of marriage). These spark a lot of conversations because when anyone admires the jewelry, I tell them about their significance.

I’ve been thinking about all of the things that I’ve learned these past thirty-three years and decided to share them with you.

Here are my five best tips for how to stay married in midlife:

1. The D word: Take the D word (divorce) off the table. When you know that divorce is not an option, then everything else is “figureoutable” (nod to Marie Forleo). 
2. Deal Breakers: That said, decide and agree on what your marriage deal breakers are–the one thing that you know you could not forgive the other for doing.
   These could be things like violence, drug or alcohol abuse, smoking, lying, cheating, wearing socks with sandals … FULL DISCLOSURE: We have decided that even though we have chosen and agreed on our deal breakers, we would never actually act on them and leave because we already took the D word off the table (See Tip 1).
3. Tuesday Topics (TT): Set aside time every week to talk about anything that is sensitive, difficult, upsetting … any potential minefields. The Tuesday Topics rules state that either of us can bring up any topic that is on our minds that we think the other might not react especially well to without any worry of it causing an argument. What happens during TT stays in TT. We agree not to hold it against the other. We carry on after the discussion ends just as we did prior to it happening.
4. Get Out of Jail Free Card: It is just that. Anytime one of us (admittedly, it is usually me) says or does something stupid (as in, “WHY did I SAY that?) that resulted in a disconnect, that hurt the other’s feelings, we can use our Get Out of Jail Free card to make up and reconnect, no questions asked. There was a period of time when I kept mine readily available so that I wouldn’t forget to use it if I needed it.
5. Date Night: Having a date night to look forward to and to celebrate our marriage and each other is incredibly important. Date nights can take any shape or form that suits you both, including eating out, subs at the ocean ( 🙂 ), a walk in the woods (see? Sometimes food–albeit rarely– is not involved!), bowling. We try to make Date Night happen weekly. There have been times over the years when it happened less frequently but the point is that it DID happen. Prioritize your time together or it will get lost.

That’s my list. I hope it serves you.
What would you add?