A marriage can be a fickle thing.
Worldwide, marriage rates are falling, including in the United States, although so are the rates of divorce.
In recognition of Valentine’s Day, The Durango Herald sat down with couples who have been married for 50 years or more to ask them: What’s the secret sauce? What makes a marriage work?
Two people in a marriage might have different interpretations of the same event.
As Jim Fitzgerald, 85, remembers it, he grumbled when a woman in his Peace Corps training cohort stole sections of the paper from him in the cafeteria at the University Notre Dame. The woman wrote him a note, and that’s how he met his wife Terry, who celebrated her 90th birthday on Feb. 6.
It was 1961.
“It wasn’t a flirtation,” said Terry Fitzgerald laughing. “He was really mad.”
The couple soon left for Cholchol, Chile, to serve in the newly created Peace Corps. They started dating a year into their two-year term of service, and married shortly before they left. That was 62 years ago.
When their service was done, the newlyweds got on a BMW motorcycle and began the trip north. That trip set the tone for six decades of marriage.
“There were times when it was scary, and most of the time, as Terry says, we respected each other and got in the habit, from all that traveling and adventure and stuff, of doing things together,” Jim said. “And so almost everything, to this day, we do together.”
The couple still lives alone, off-grid at the base of the HD mountains near Bayfield in a wood-paneled home they purchased in 1970.
It’s been luck, to a degree, that has kept the couple together all this time.
“(We’re) just people who had the same dreams for life and figured out how to make that work,” Terry said.
Jim recalled being horrified when friends in Chicago asked if they had an apartment. The concept that didn’t jibe with his and Terry’s vision for their future.
The couple had what Jim described as “super kids” – twin girls who, as adults, still live in the area. Raising kids was a great joy, Terry said, but not one that distracted the Fitzgeralds from their own identities. Both Terry and Jim enjoy horses and raised draft horses together, which they would use to shuttle groceries and their kids down a long driveway to and from the car.
Although they might remember the newspaper incident differently, Jim and Terry say they haven’t differed on much since.
“It was always a partnership,” Terry said. “Everything we did, we had already agreed on – when we moved different places, anything like that, (we were) always trying to respect somebody else's opinion and just be in sync with the way life needed to go.”
Martha, who also goes by Marty, and Randy Ragle, both 72, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on May 26, 2023. They’ve worked together their entire married lives, traveling and selling medical equipment around the country for a time and independently remodeling and renting houses.
She said they like to tell people they’ve been married for 100 years because they spend twice the amount of time with each other than other married working people.
They met in Randy’s dorm room at Kansas University in 1971 to play cards. Randy was like a rock star with his long hair and adventurous nature.
Randy said he asked Marty out that summer. Their first date was a Ike and Tina Turner concert, followed by a sandbar party on the river and a motorcycle ride for the rest of the night.
They married at their home on May 26, 1973. Marty’s mother made her wedding dress. Marty and Randy bought their cake at the grocery store. The ceremony was supposed to be in their yard, but it rained that day – a sign of good luck, Marty said.
Randy said his wife is the same sweet, pretty, free spirit she was when they met at 19 years old.
When they had their son, Luke, they made a conscious effort not to let having a child change their relationship.
“The maternal instinct is so strong that you can tend to ignore the man and focus on the baby,” Marty said. “And I think that was something that we realized. ... Our son just became part of the pack.”
When it comes to a successful marriage, she said it’s important to respect one’s partner, to be good and generous with one’s compliments, physical intimacy is important, and so is a quality sense of humor. She also encouraged flexibility and to avoid being judgmental.
Randy said a successful marriage requires more than casual attraction – a couple needs to share common goals and the same outlook on life. That doesn’t mean a couple needs to share the same personalities – but they should want similar things out of life. Being active and healthy and attractive to each other is important too.
“You have to have fun. If you don't have fun, why bother?” he said. “... There’s so many people that get old and just grumpy and won’t do anything, and the other person is going, ‘Damn, you know, I’m not ready to die yet.’”
Even after 51 years of marriage, Kirk McLaughlin remembers exactly how he felt when he first laid eyes on his wife, Evelyn McLaughlin, as she stood on her front porch in the middle of a snowy Durango winter.
“I always tell my grandchildren, I had to marry her,” he said. “It was love. I had no choice in the matter.”
The McLaughlins met at 8 p.m. Dec. 11, 1971, in Durango (Kirk doesn’t need time to think about this) and were married two years later. They haven’t looked back since.
Kirk, 75, and Evelyn, 71, have lived in La Plata County for decades. They raised their two sons here, and Kirk taught high school in Aztec and Bayfield.
Dressed in coordinating shades of red, they speak about their marriage with the easy rhythm of those who know each other intimately; the infatuation normally reserved for newly in love couples and honeymooners has never left.
“It’s like he still sees that 17-year-old in his mind instead of the 71 year old he’s looking at now,” Evelyn said.
The secret to their marital bliss? According to Evelyn, it’s simply good luck. Their interests and core values align so effortlessly that they’ve never had to argue about the big things.
“We were pretty much in agreement on how to raise the kids,” Evelyn said. “I felt like they brought us closer.”
The McLaughlins said that after so long, they know what buttons not to push.
“There’s certain things I could say to him, and he would light right up, but we try to avoid those things,” Evelyn said.
Kirk agreed.
“We’re not big fighters,” he said. “We don’t get into big, knockdown, dragouts.”
Perhaps more important, Kirk and Evelyn are partners in fun.
They both love to travel. When they were young and broke they road tripped all over the U.S., camping to save money. That shared love for adventure eventually took them all over Europe and Asia, and they don’t plan on slowing down.
The McLaughlins are looking ahead to a possible cycling trip across Spain.
“We’re ready to pack our bags and go,” Kirk laughed.
They do a lot of laughing together. Evelyn said this sense of humor allows them to handle each other’s little quirks and irritations without getting bent out of shape.
“I haven’t killed him yet,” she said as Kirk chuckled.
And their final tip: You can choose to be happy. It doesn’t just always happen.
As Kirk said, “Today is a good day to have a good day.” Maybe everyone should remember that the next time their partner leaves the dishes in the sink or forgets to fold the laundry.
rschafir@durangoherald.com, cburney@durangoherald.com, jbowman@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Terry Fitzgerald’s first name.
