Is it just me?

I was listening to a radio show this morning and they were talking on the phone to a man who had won some prize.  He'd been married for 31 years so the presenter of course said "Wow that's impressive. What's the secret to a long marriage?"   The man didn't quite know what to say, he was the quiet sort.

The presenter went on "Plenty of patience I expect? haha!"

"Um well yes I suppose so!"

"And plenty of presents for the wife!"

Aaagggh, the old stereotypical 'wife who needs lots of presents to keep her happy' joke.  It conjures up a picture of a chap coming home late from the office to find his frazzled wife who's been looking after the children and cooking dinner, and whipping out a box from Tiffany's to make her feel better. 

According to this site, "Women love being showered with beautiful, expensive gifts and being pampered with expensive jewelry especially - diamonds, gold, silver, platinum jewelry. Jewelry can be as expensive as you want it to be."

Maybe it's my lack of children and the fact that I've always been an equal salary earner that mean I don't really get it.   I'm not saying that it's not nice to get surprise presents but I never expect them, and certainly don't want or expect expensive 'sparkly things' from a jewelers; I'd rather have something that I can use or that cost 50p that he got me just because he knew it would make me laugh.

Mr H and I will have been married for 22 years in April.   No it hasn't been a perfect 22 years, but who can honestly say their marriages haven't had peaks and troughs.  The important thing is that now we are on the upper flanks of the mountain and climbing.

I now know the 'secrets' to happy marriage (ours at least) to be:

1.  Communication
2.  Individuality
3.  Similar basic values
4.  Retaining some independence
5.  Sharing

And some other obvious things like thoughtfulness and caring quite a lot about each other.

I'd rather have those than a diamond necklace any day.

But hey-ho, each to their own I guess.