How does love endure after two people spend 50 years together? What does a relationship look like after half a century?
Three Los Angeles couples sat down to share reminiscences of their long-lasting lives together. In doing so, they shared the secrets to an eternal, everlasting, ceaseless love.
Ron and Darlene De Luco
“I don’t have my hearing aids,” Darlene realizes. “Should I put them on?”
“I think you'd better do that,” Ron teases.
And so begins a recollection of 60 years of marriage. Ron was in the Army, and Darlene was a school teacher in Michigan, when a mutual friend set them up on a blind date.
Two years after their first date, they married. Both were 25 at the time. This was quite different from their friends, who had all wed shortly after high school.
“People got married much younger then,” Darlene explains. “We were old.” “We were both confirmed bachelors,” Ron agrees.
Before they met, they didn’t particularly desire marriage.
“I didn’t care one way or the other,” Darlene explains.
“Neither of us did,” Ron adds.
Ron had a particularly “crushing” experience when a previous girlfriend ended things with him. He didn’t want to get hurt again. Meanwhile, Darlene felt perfectly at peace in her singleness.
“I enjoyed my freedom,” she says.
Yet, there was something about that date and the time they spent together thereafter that changed their minds.
After marrying in 1965, Darlene continued to teach for a few years, but chose to stay home after they had a son. Ron worked until retirement at CBS.
“Can you believe she never cooked with garlic before she married me?,” Ron jokes about the single greatest challenge they’ve had to overcome.
On a more serious note, they admit that getting along was difficult at first. “We came from two completely different backgrounds,” Darlene says.
He’s Italian Catholic, while she’s German Protestant. They had to adapt to each other’s lifestyles. Ron is sure, however, that no matter their backgrounds, they would have found a way to get along as a couple.
Throughout the recollection of their life together, Ron readily attends to Darlene’s needs. If she can’t hear a question, he gently repeats it. If she struggles to speak, he offers her water. If she loses her train of thought, he finishes it for her.
To Ron and Darlene, the keys to a long-lasting marriage are tolerance, understanding, and adaptability.
“Over a length of time, you become part of each other,” Ron says. “I’m sure she has traits that are mine and I have traits that are hers.”
“Absolutely,” she agrees.
They emphasize that marriage isn’t necessarily something to be romanticized. Rather, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of living.
“When you’re first married, you don’t really know each other that well,” Ron says. “It’s a learning experience. This has been a 60-year learning experience. When we gasp our last breath, it will still be a new experience.”
Yefim and Frida Yufa
What follows is a story of forbidden love. Yefim and Frida are survivors of the Holocaust. Despite the circumstances in their upbringing, they found each other and forged a 63-year marriage.
Despite his minimal English, Yefim is determined to share their love story, coming prepared with written notes and a translation app.
He and his wife were born in Ukraine in the time of the Soviet Union. Yefim’s family lived amid barbed wire fences. He grew up to become a textile engineer. While at a wedding, his aunt asked if he would like to meet a beautiful woman.
“Of course,” he said.
Yefim was 30 at the time and ready for something serious. Frida was 20 at the time and not ready for anything serious.
She was a student and wanted to focus on her studies, but her father gave his word that she would meet Yefim. Whether she liked him or not would be up to her. But no matter what, she had to help her father keep his promise.
“He forced me to go meet him,” Frida says.
Frida was sitting on a bench with her face in a book. When she looked up from the book, it was love at first sight for Yefim.
“When I approached her (and I hadn’t yet spoken to her), I decided this was my destiny. She would be my wife,” Yefim muses.
As he says this, he leads the way to their bedroom, where a black-and-white portrait of their younger selves hangs. He just had to share the beauty of that young woman, standing in awe before the portrait, lost in time.
On their first date, they walked for an hour and continued along the same path for five days straight. On the fifth day, he proposed.
“I don’t know why, but I said ‘Yes,’” Frida tells us through fits of laughter.
Their wedding was simple. There weren't many people there, but not because they didn’t want more guests. Neither had much family left after the Holocaust.
“I’m from a generation that doesn’t have grandparents, Frida says. “Nobody survived.”
Yefim is a Polish Jew, while Frida is a Romanian Jew. With various religious laws governing marriage, they decided to wed in secret. Their marriage ceremony was performed illegally inside a small apartment.
“No one was supposed to know,” Frida says.
They closed the blinds so outsiders couldn't see in. Their marriage certificate was hidden in a pillowcase.
As newlyweds, they wanted nothing more than to have children. However, the conditions weren’t ideal for starting a family. They lived in one room without running water, gas, or heat.
“It was so horrible,” Frida says. “It was very, very hard to have children.”
It was especially difficult when it snowed. Despite their circumstances, “it was no question” that they would start a family, she says.
They now have two children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. All live in the United States.
The couple immigrated to the U.S. merely two weeks before the Soviet Union collapsed. “Here, we feel the freedom,” Frida says.
To make up for what they lacked in a wedding, they held a large celebration for their 50th anniversary with all the friends and family they wanted.
“It was very beautiful,” Frida says.
William and Mariam Durghalli
William and Mariam have been married for 50 years. They met as children in a small Syrian village. They were friends for 15 years before they realized their friendship could become something more.
In their adulthood, they bonded over music. She was a singer, while he was a guitarist. They’d perform on stage, wooing the crowds, and low-key wooing each other. Their time together, however, was cut short.
Mariam immigrated to the United States. When the opportunity presented itself, she had to take it.
For all they knew, they would never see each other again, but they each held fast to the hope that William would one day be able to join her.
However, not only had Mariam moved halfway across the world, but William had been drafted into the army at the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. They had no way of contacting each other. She had no way of knowing if he was still alive.
“Every week, we heard of someone dying,” she says.
William even lost a cousin in the war.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Mariam says.
“She was very anxious,” William adds.
The second he was discharged, he sent her a letter overseas declaring his desire to marry her. He then approached her parents and asked for her hand in marriage.
This was rare for the time. Most marriages in Syria were arranged.
“We were exceptional,” William says.
They sent each other letters all throughout their engagement. When he finally made his big move to America, they promptly wed.
The wedding cost less than $1,000, including the dress, venue, and flowers. Even so, they still didn’t have enough money left over for a honeymoon.
The highlight of their marriage was the surprise birth of twin boys. Technology had not yet advanced enough to detect twins. William and Mariam only had one crib at home. Overnight, their family doubled in size.
They waited a few years before having kids because they simply couldn’t afford it. The twins' surprise led to further strain in their finances. Yet Mariam still wanted to try for a girl.
“I insist,” she said.
William was hesitant at first, but unable to turn down his wife, happily obliged in time. Mariam got her wish. Today, they have three children and four grandchildren.
William eventually started his own business, creating financial stability for their growing family.
This couple believes they’ve lasted as long as they have not only because of their love, but because of their shared values.
They intended to stay together forever, and believe they have done so because they put their minds to it. They’ve never wavered in this mindset. For them, it’s not about what dwells in their chests, but also what dwells in their heads. Their love has only grown as their hearts and minds have coalesced.
