I Love my Wife (or Husband)

Not trying to hijack or derail his beautiful thread in anyway. But whats some of the best, solid advice you can give me when it comes to making a marriage work and most importantly last?

Back in the day, I knew an awful lot of guys whose motivation with women was just to get laid. For me, a tip for long-term marriage was not so much finding someone to go to bed with - it was finding the right person to wake up to. Every day. I will give a +2 to the advice above, to be yourself and don't settle. Also, be willing to compromise.

My story. It took a long time for me to find a woman I wanted to be around long term. I didn't get married till I was 35. An acquaintance I knew only over the phone coordinating things between her company and mine asked me after hundreds of phone calls, if I was tall, dark, handsome, and over 50. Unfortunately I had to admit I was none of the above and nowhere near 50. She then said I should meet this friend of hers that was more my age, which I agreed to. That blind date turned into 22 years of excellent marriage. She was the right person for me and we were an item from the second date and married a year later. There was not one fight in the entire 22 years. All was well and we were making plans to grow old with each other on twin rocking chairs watching sunsets from the front porch. Sadly, cancer with its nasty claws showed up one day to take her away from me. A couple of rough years followed.

After healing up for a while, I decided I was ready to re-enter the dating pool. I dated a handful of gals, some for a while but nothing was really grabbing my attention. Then one day a former neighbor finds out I'm in between dates and absolutely insists I have to meet this friend of hers. The neighbor is a pretty solid screwball so I wasn't overly enthused at what this friend of hers would be like, but I agreed and met for coffee. And we hit it off immediately, by the second date we are an item and we've been together for going on five years. She is every bit the smartass I am with the same wildly uncensored sense of humor. She is the other half of me I didn't know I was missing till I met her.

As I tell folks all the time, most people never come close to winning the lottery, either for money or love. I won it twice, and consider myself the luckiest guy on the planet to have been so fortunate to have two magnificent women in my life.