What are your secrets?
Mrs. L and i are going on 7 years so I don’t know if we qualify. But I think for us, travel has been a biggie.
I don’t think 7 years counts as long lived, but it beats a few months by a lot at least and I know people who never get beyond that.
For us it is 29 years together and close to 28 years married. I don’t think we have any great secret, wish I had some sage advice to pass on.
I guess in our case it is division of labor and we compliment each other.
26th wedding anniversary today. Some days, I think it’s just being too stubborn to give up. 
Met and got together in 1980, married in 1991. 41 years together, we’ll have been married 30 years in June.
We are each allowed to be our own person, and there is always respect even when exasperation is the reigning emotion. Sometimes it’s just habit that keeps us together (or me here) and a bit of laziness too. We don’t set the night on fire, but we’re comfortable together, and staying together is easier and more pleasant than not.
I know that sounds depressing, but it isn’t. There is love and respect and communication and care. It isn’t rockets and roses, but it’s home.
And yeah, stubbornness might be a factor too 
Met in Early December of 1979, got married in late January 1980.
And no, she was not pregnant. Just a whirlwind romance. We just knew.
We’ve only had 1 fight since then.
It started in February of 1980.
I kid. I kid.
Hasn’t always been easy.
Having common interests, goals and passions helps.
Mutual respect and admiration makes her happy.
Still bumping uglies couple of times a week shuts me up! 
Definitely this, and it also helps if you complement each other (i.e. fill in each other’s missing skills and interests).
What it amounted to for us was that somehow each of us made up out mind individually that we were going to stay together, and we did it long enough to work out most of the rough spots most of the time. Also that when we met we were already in our 40’s and had already weathered several relationships before that. We’ve been together going on 29 years, and now that we’re in our 70’s I think we would be lost without each other. We are a gay couple so we couldn’t get married until a few years ago, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.
19 years. We share the same values, life goals, interests and sense of humor. When I met him at age 18, I was a traumatized twisted up vulnerable little person and he saw something great in me. I still don’t understand it but he really honestly loves me. We both had a lot of growing to do and we grew together.
I used to be so arrogant about it, like we accomplished something, but we had one really bad year that humbled me, and now I don’t know how much credit we can really take.
But we definitely do things that help.
We always treat each other with respect, and when we slip up we apologize, and we don’t avoid problems, we hash them out. We were both raised with terrible relationship models and were just so, so determined to not be like our parents. Every time I want to snap at him I ask myself if I want this to be the pattern in our relationship. Then I do the thing I want to be the pattern. And that’s how I maintain the pattern. And I maintain it when I’m tired, when I’m pissy, when I’m hurt, when I’m overwhelmed. No it’s not perfect. I can get a little yelly sometimes. But I course - correct immediately. Within moments or at the worst, minutes. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, I’m just frustrated about XYZ.” 99% of the time it’s not about either of us, it’s some childhood trauma bullshit. We don’t argue that often because we don’t want to establish an argument pattern. Most of the time it’s just not worth it.
The last thing we argued about was Facebook data mining. I know. We were both so pissed off. But it’s never about that. It’s about how sensitive I am to being patronized and how much he hates it when I refuse to listen to him. And in the argument post-mortem which we always do we get down to this root of how terrified he is about becoming one of those couples that always fights, like his parents.
But really what makes it work is that we just get along so damned well. We want to be with each other, we look forward to decompressing at the end of every day, we talk about everything from how many grapes our son shoved up his nose today to systemic racism in the criminal justice system. That article I read, we’re gonna talk about it. Here’s this podcast I listened to, you should listen and we’ll discuss. What did you think of this TV show you just watched? Hey I’ve got a question it’s totally random but… So much of our relationship is good conversation.
I don’t have the answer but I think it mostly resides with the woman. Most men are basically the same. Women are more likely to be dissatisfied with a relationship and more likely to leave one. I was married for around 8-9 years together for 10, and we started off as best friends. I think long term relationships are increasingly a thing of the past.
Going on 32 years here. Be nice to one another, and don’t hold grudges when things occasionally go sideways.
Off the top of my head, two things:
Humor. In our marriage, a day does not pass without laughter.
Empathy. When your partner/spouse does one of the many small things that may irritate you, think of the similar things you do that may irritate them and just let it go.
13 years for me and my wife, so not quite “long lived” by the usual standard. But we’re rock-solid, even stronger now after a year of cooped-up pandemic stress, which many couples cannot say.
For us, besides the usual (mutual respect, tolerance of one another’s quirks as-is with no desire to change each other, fair division of labor, forgiveness, laughter, etc.), the key factor is that we met when we were older, in our late 30s. Both of us had suffered some terrible relationships and did a lot of soul-searching to figure ourselves out before we met. So when we did get together, we had the proper context to really appreciate one another. We have talked, several times, about how if we’d met when we were much younger, at the “usual” time people start thinking about permanent romantic attachment, neither of us would have had enough experience to really recognize the qualities of the other person.
Our fist date was 05.19.1972. We married three years later, on 05.17.1975. Next month we will have been together 49 years… I think the success of our relationship is that we have never stopped working on making it better. We have had, as all couples do, many peaks and valleys over our time together but we have always been able to continue on.
I have to agree with most of this. This Saturday will be our 39th anniversary - if you go by when we started dating it will be 44 years in May.
Believe me, there have been times…but like you say, it was easier to just keep chugging along.
We love each other, we’ve been through a lot together, we’re comfortable together and the sex is still good. So why upset the cart?
It’ll be 25 years for us in August. There have been a couple of rough patches, but we were both to stubborn to give up and worked through things. Both sets of parents have had long marriages; 58 years for her parents and 68 years for mine. Ours is an interfaith marriage, but our values are very similar. Add to that the fact we’re still madly in love with each other.
^ This. We have been married for 24 years. We got married at 36 years old. We where already our own person at that point, not much was going to change in either of us. We never even bothered with a joint checking account or credit cards. I take care of certain things, my Wife takes care of others. And we adjust as needed. We are DINKS so that may help.
And of course your spouse will do things, or have a habit that slightly aggravates you from time to time. Know that you also have things that aggravate your spouse. A gentle reminder is fine, but don’t make mountains out of mole hills.
We are outliers in that we never argue. It’s never “We are going to.” it’s always “Would you like to?”
Use your strengths to each others advantage. My Wife is very good at trip planning, so she is our (jokingly) ‘travel agent’. She likes it. Never disappoints. I take care of house projects and all computer related stuff, as it bores my Wife. Of course for the big stuff, we consult with each other.
32 years. Maybe the secret is that there isn’t any secret. Currently I am harboring a months-old grudge because she stores empty ice cube trays behind the kitchen faucet so I have to fight them every time I open the tap, but I expect a battle if I bring it up.
But we love each other and take care of each other. We saved each other’s life, one time each. We have some idea how fragile happiness and security and life is. I’m aware that I don’t want to date anybody else, I just want to keep this as good as I can.
We just had our fifteenth anniversary. I’m not going to say it’s a perfect relationship that all should aspire to, or that we have any wisdom to pass along.
This comes closest to how I think of it. It’s like a project we both want to do, and we have compatible work styles.
Gosh, I should write greeting cards!
We celebrate the date we moved in together as our anniversary. This year will be 48 years. It’s also our wedding date because in 1999 my wife’s family was having a family reunion over that weekend, so we decided to throw a surprise wedding. They were surprised, bigly.
If I had to sum our success in a one-liner, I’d say, “Care more about your partner’s happiness than your own.” That leads to compromise and sometimes sacrifice but both people should wind up winning. Obviously, you have to come to this as equals so that sacrifice is not abused. But if both people truly care about the other that shouldn’t happen.
We’ve been dating 15 years or so now. There has been some talk of marriage, but I don’t wanna rush into anything.
15 years in, I’d say trust and mutual respect are the keys. It helps that we laugh at the same jokes. We have some privileges too, like not have too much to worry about in the health or finance departments.
Our interests aren’t that closely aligned but we generally agree on travel plans and we do enjoy traveling together.