Margaret Ann and Hu Puffer, it’s easy to tell, have spent a good part of their 50-year marriage teasing one another. Mr. Puffer, a retired school principal, volunteers that he has five nicknames for his wife depending on her mood. Ms. Puffer, a former nurse, knows all his best material: His jokes, she sighs, “are pretty corny, let me tell you.”
The secret to their half-century of marital happiness is rolling with the punches, her husband explains, as the couple banters on the phone from their home in St. Albert, Alta. “You’ve got to keep thing in perspective. And laugh.”
Arguments are best avoided, Mr. Puffer adds: “I always lose anyway.”
As Canadians continue to live longer, they can expect to spend more years with their life partners, whatever old age brings. Late-life divorce is increasing – led by wives – but most married couples stay together in their later years. And that is the time when, research suggests, the benefits of a happy marriage – and the consequences of a bad one – have the most impact on health.
Rachel Aber-Schlesinger and Ben Schlesinger on their wedding day, 51 years ago.
Even with current trends of marrying later, more couples can expect to make it to the golden anniversary and beyond, says Barbara Mitchell, an associate professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University. “It brings a whole new meaning to the vows, ‘till death do you part.’ ”
Laughter aside, the Puffers have many other ingredients of a good long-time marriage: They both keep busy volunteering (“We don’t have time to complain,” Ms. Puffer says), they have many friends and they’ve resolved most of the big – and little – issues.
Of course, life isn’t always sunny. A series of major stomach operations have left Mr. Puffer dangerously thin. (“Built for speed,” he jokes. “And not for cuddling, so he says,” his wife fires back.) But their days aren’t dull.
As Mr. Puffer observes: “This is kind of the climax to the whole deal.”
The years bring perspective, Bill Hubbard agrees. Every day, the 82-year-old retired insurance manager carries the newspaper across the street from his home in Trail, B.C., to the nursing home where his wife, Joan, now lives. They read it together. On bad days, stricken with Parkinson’s disease and twinges of dementia, she doesn’t always remember who he is. But her long-term memory is sharper, so she’s the one who gets the details right when they reminisce about family and cottage holidays. This month, they celebrated their 55th anniversary with Chinese takeout ordered by one of their three daughters.
Rachel Aber-Schlesinger and Ben Schlesinger in New Zealand in 1978.
Ms. Hubbard’s illness changed their retirement plans; they moved to Trail because she became too sick for her husband to care for her alone. Now their lives together are a series of conversations, or quiet time in front of the TV, learning to laugh when he arrives to find her trapped in her wheelchair in the bathroom, after looking for her husband there.
Mr. Hubbard has his regrets, mostly about what he calls the “blank” middle years of their marriage, when they were so swamped with family and work responsibilities that they didn’t make time for each other. “It was a blur. We were just sort of robots going through what we had to do,” he recalls. “If we had only stood back and said, ‘what the hell are we doing?’ ”
Now, their time together feels more precious. “All the rest of the stuff is meaningless to me, what I concentrate on is Joan,” Mr. Hubbard says. “It may sound strange, but I think our marriage is stronger than ever.”
In fact, the research suggests that, while there’s no guarantee that sticking it out will lead to happiness, good marriages often get better later in life.
