By Bruce Bialosky

Written by Bruce Bialosky

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Tracy and Hepburn.  Add to that the story of Teri and Bruce.

40 sounds big, and it really is big.  Being married for 40 years and still madly, deeply in love is something only a person can dream of.  With the decline in the number of people getting married, the later age at marriage, and the emergence of no-fault divorce, the number becomes even larger.

When people hear you were engaged after only 19 days from your first date, they look at you like you are telling them a fish story.  No, it isn’t a fish story.  None of our friends or family even knew we were dating.  The Beautiful Wife had mentioned me to her eventual maid of honor, and that was it.  When her mother heard of the engagement, she thought it would not last. She has been proven wildly wrong.

By the 19^th day, things had advanced pretty far in our relationship, and we had big plans for Saturday night.  It was Friday, the night before.

At a time when people get engaged at football stadiums, this was the complete opposite.  I was at a business meeting close to her apartment.  I called to ask her if she had plans. I came over, and we went to dinner.  For some reason, she chose a sushi restaurant.  I say that because to this day the woman still doesn’t know how to really eat sushi.  We sat at the sushi bar and discussed all the big picture things about life. I mean big.

We returned to her apartment.  We were sitting on the couch furthering our discussion when I looked at her and said, “We really don’t have anything else to discuss.”  She looked at me oddly.  She later told me she was thinking I was invested in this guy and was wondering if he was dumping me. Quite the opposite.  I said something that I had not thought of saying to anyone before or even until that moment: “We have discussed everything important; will you marry?” She looked at me quite shocked and said, “Are you serious?”  My answer was yes, and more importantly, so was hers.

I had just asked a woman to marry me who did not care about my three primary interests outside of work – music, baseball, and politics.  She became very interested in politics and has been to the White House many times. Thanks to Kirk Gibson, she became a Dodger fan.  She has seen baseball in all the current stadiums and in five countries.  Unfortunately, her musical tastes still haven’t gotten there, but our kids have, thankfully.

We didn’t get married for another eight months as we both wanted a big wedding and I wanted a formal one.  We went to dinner the next night as planned after spending the day euphorically informing some of our friends, but not our families.  I wanted to formally ask her parents for her hand in marriage.  Since we were engaged on Friday, December 13^th (so much for Friday the 13^th being a bad day), we would be walking into seasonal parties, and we decided to tell people in person at the events.

At dinner, I told her I understood we would not be officially married for some time as we both wanted that big wedding. Despite that, as far as I was concerned, what we had done the night before made us married. Then I told her, “You have two ways of getting out of this – “you die, or I kill you.”  I made it clear to her that I was here for the long haul.

Have we had challenges over the last forty years? Yes, everybody does.  In that regard, we have been blessed that, whatever those challenges, we were able to overcome them and move forward.  They never challenged our commitment to each other.

We succeeded because we worked at it.  Do we fight?  Please, we yell at each other every day.  We never let it last.  We never go to bed mad.  We talk it out and move on. What we do is we always want to share our lives with each other.  We talk during the day regularly, and we always want to share thoughts and important matters when they occur.  When I get home, she is always happy to see me walk in the door as I am when she does.  We always kiss goodbye and good night.

We succeeded because we put one foot forward, then the next, and never stopped.  We bought our first home and then the one where we have lived for the past 36 years, which the crazed wife has updated over and over and over again.

We raised our two wonderful children, Sam and Hannah, there, giving them stability.  Hannah can come back to her bedroom; Sam can’t.  That was turned into a den.

Last 4^th of July, Sam brought a young lady to dinner at the house.  We had not met her before.  She absorbed some of the successes we had, including my being a presidential appointee.  She asked me a question I had never been asked before.  What do you attribute your success to?  I immediately responded because to me it is clear – getting married and staying married.

We are not having a party for this one, in a very uncharacteristic Bialosky manner.  We are going to Chicago for a couple of days tomorrow.  We will have some delicious food, including deep dish pizza, and attend a Cubbie game.  We will have a party for the 50th, which we are counting on being around for, and hopefully you will also.

We realize we are blessed as people and as a couple and we are grateful.  Our family and friends are a blessing.  Most importantly, we have each other. Yes, and I have The Beautiful Wife.  How great life is!

-Bruce Bialosky

Bruce L. Bialosky, is a former presidential appointee to the U.S Holocaust Memorial Council and the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California.

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