I (45) have been in a happy fun 2nd marriage with my wife (46, her 1st marriage) for 18 years, our wedding anniversary was almost 3 weeks ago. We have also been in a sexual relationship together (from our 3rd date) for close to 21 years. Plus despite having seperate addresses till marriage, we started living together at hers after around six months of being together. We also have two children (a boy and a girl)who are are 16 and 13 that are for the most part well behaved, apparently happy and are so far academically successful. With our youngest being an accomplished musician who is talented in visual arts, who has also represented her schools in sport, at zone and regional level.
Through our almost 21 years together we have weathered lots of things, yet our enjoyment of each other has remained pretty constant.
Within our first six months of dating we both survived a multi-casualty incident where a car ran down three people including my now wife ,which missed hitting me by no greater than the length of a thumb. My wife required plastic surgery to repair her face. She wears a small scar on her face as a reminder, had injured knees and partial memory loss just before and after being hit. The other older couple (my parents age) suffered spinal injuries, broken limbs and brain damage.
I almost died in our second year of marriage and spent around six months in and out of hospital as a consequence of it. A few years after that my wife was injured at work, which saw her spend six months off work. With lots of physiotherapy after they repaired her leg with bits of metal, which still sets off airport metal detectors.
Throughout our marriage, we have also lived at 9 different addresses, most of which have been within 5-12km (3-7mi) of the CBD of a major metropolis. Although two of those addresses were in an isolated rural community (less than 2000 people) on the edge of the outback which for two weeks was even more isolated when our town was completely cut off by floodwaters.
Plus until we were married I would be away for 4-6 weeks each year with the Army Reserve in Infantry. Then after we were married for the first five years I was away for several weeks through months at a time when I was doing part-time (Reserve) and full-time (Regular) service in Intelligence.
Exempting around 3 years my wife has always earned more than me and by that she is and has been for the most part the primary breadwinner. After leaving the Army, I was a SAHP for around three years following my wife's last maternity leave. Yet I got sick of that and went back to work. We both work full time and have seldom ever had more than a 10-15 minute drive/train or walk to work while we have been together, so get to spend a fair amount of time with each other.
Funnily enough when we both met at work and my wife asked me out on a date, neither of us were looking for a long term relationship with each other and weren't looking for marriage either. It was just meant to be lots of sex and some fun for a few weeks through possibly a few months. Yet after almost 21 years together as always (except for illness injury and work separation), we're still sharing lots of sex and fun which is why we remain together.
I also like the fact that my wife is fun, witty, blunt, clever, successful, pragmatic, a former 2nd wave Feminist activist. Attractive, taller than me, sexy, very sexual, has very few sexual limits, is kinky, is happy to do my kinks and wants me but doesn't need me. Plus it helps that we are both atheists and are for the most part on the same page with respect to social and moral views, parenting and discipline. While we also give primacy to our relationship before our children.
We also still date, flirt constantly, grope explicitly, have lots of frequent non-vanilla sex. Plus play silly games like my wife will often flash me while we're out, or poses for sexual photos of the same while we're out as well. For a time up till last year my wife and I also posted on a fetish website where we posted/shared some of our extremely sexually explicit photos with our faces not shown as well.
As it turns out the Sex In Marriage sub-forum is what brought me to TAM in the first place, not because of any relationship or sexual problems, just I'm into sex stuff. Yet I liked some of the discussions that were being had on TAM, so have remained to participate as a consequence of those discussions.
In my experience a great marriage is very easy.
If a marriage requires considerable interpersonal struggle and sacrifice in order for it to be maintained, the participants of that marriage are probably married to the wrong partners.