Love Does Not Retire – Not Even After a Half Century of Marriage

Abstract

Aim: Love and intimate relationships are appreciated and considered an important source of personal pleasure and
support especially in the modern busy world. The feeling of being loved and the opportunity to show love are valuable both to the
young and the elderly. However, keeping up a good and happy intimate relationship or marriage seems challenging. The secret of
long-lasting marriages has been studied although no definite answer has been found. Method: In this research, couples who had
been married around 50 years were asked to write their love stories in the form of informal letters. Altogether, the data comprised
117 letters or love stories. The writers were aged between 50 and 91 and their average age was 70 years. In this article, the
following questions are addressed: 1) How do the elderly describe their experiences of a long-lasting marriage? 2) How have they
managed to sustain their marriage or what factors do they consider, according to their experiences and perceptions, important to
make the marriage endure? 3) What does a decades-long marriage give and demand and what is its significance? Results and
Conclusion: Based on the results, a model of a long-lasting intimate relationship is introduced.