It is a huge achievement to reach a 25th anniversary whether it is that you have worked for the same company for twenty five years or been married to the same spouse for that length of time.  This is especially true in today’s societies with a more mobile workforce and divorce seemingly accepted as a way of life.

In marriage a silver anniversary is a big milestone and one well worth celebrating.  When you take your marriage vows, be it in a church or an hotel or on a beach, one of the things you usually promise is to love and be with each other through good times and bad for the rest of your lives.  Unfortunately for some people the vows they take are just words that are said at the ceremony without any real thought taken as to what they actually mean and entail.  If you get married when you are young it is difficult to envisage reaching your 25th anniversary because it seems such a long time away.  But as you get older and your children, if you are lucky enough to have them, are growing up you realize just how quickly time passes and before you know it 25 years have passed.

This year my husband and I will have been married for 38 years and when we stood in church saying our vows “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part” we both meant the words we were saying and still do. There have been bad times and good times and it hasn’t always been a bed of roses but the good times have far out weighed the bad and we are still each others best friend.

A lot of our friends have also celebrated their silver anniversary and we have all feel a great sense of achievement that we have weathered whatever storms have been sent our way.  But the thing I find really sad is those of our friends who having celebrated being together for a quarter of a century or more and then gone on to get divorced.  From a personal point of view I know that by the time we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary life was getting so much easier.  Our children were grown up, we both had careers we enjoyed, we didn’t have any money worries and we were enjoying being just a couple again.

My parents were married for 62 years so my husband and I have only got another 24 years to go to match them!