English born Iris Beazley, now aged 82, made a date with Les Dixon and her identical twin sister, Hettie, made a date with Ern, and they then swapped places and found true love.
Iris had arranged to go to the movies with Les but then saw someone that she liked better so she asked her twin sister to step in and pretend to be her. She kept the pretence up for a couple more dates and the rest is history, or so the saying goes.
After a few years, Hettie then was asked out by a boy called Ern, and when he came to the house to see Hettie, he met Iris. Poor Ern didn't understand why Iris wasn't smiling or recognising him at first. Once the misunderstanding was realised, the love was already there. Love blossomed for both couples, but as Hettie's love was fairly new, they both had to wait for a year before they could get married.
As money was quite tight, the twin's father told them that they couldn't get married separately as he just couldn't afford it. Sixty years later, through good times and bad times, the twins are still happily married and more in love than ever.
How is it that these days no one ever seems to be able to hold down a marriage. When people hear and see couples that are long-term married and happily in love, why is that we think that we won't be able to commit forever. Does the fact that todays singles have so many options to pursue other avenues to meet multiple partners such as online dating play a part in failed relationships?
Some people seem to have longer relationships without the pressure of marriage coming into play. Yet love and romance is what most people seek and will continue to seek forever. Love and romance is probably the reason why people leave their marriages instead of working through the problems. They see that the love is perhaps gone when in fact it is just that times are hard and stress levels are masking true feelings.
It is more important to work at a relationship and in today's world where everything has an instant fix, people perhaps think that their relationships should be instantly fixed. The reality is that most things cannot be fixed instantly and in terms of relationships they must be worked on and worked at.
We should be looking towards couple like Iris and Les and Hettie and Ern to show us that true love can come good and help couples get through the rough patches and the hard times. The good times are always much more rewarding when there is something to compare it to. Counselling is often seen as a weakness, but it can work if both people in the couple try hard and keep at it. However, free counselling is not always available, so it can cost too much for people to keep going back to a counsellor, especially if they are finding that it is not working immediately.
Lets hope that most people who marry can carry off the 60 years of marriage and are rewarded with a diamond wedding anniversary. If not, then definately for the possibility of a beautiful ring!
