For a series called Northwest Love Stories, Jennifer Willis at The Oregonian interviews Eric Marcoux, 82, and Eugene Woodworth, 84, who will celebrate being together for 60 years in June.
Here's part of it:
Q: What advice would you give to new couples today?
Marcoux: God, that's just a terror of a question. To know it's not easy, and leave if it's toxic. Wait long enough to know whether or not it's toxic or just a pain. And be in love with love.
Woodworth: The main thing that I come back to is commitment. You have to decide from the very beginning whether it's going to be a committed relationship for a long period or if it's just going to be as long as it lasts. Which is what most people do. They fall in love with lust instead of love. And they think that when the sex starts getting bad, that's the end of the relationship. That's the beginning of the relationship! That's when you start working on it.
Q: What's the biggest lesson about love and partnership you've learned along the way?
Woodworth: It never lets up.
Marcoux: To be more gentle toward my own vulnerabilities and to his inadequacies, because they disappoint him as well as me. Oh, that didn't make any sense at all.
Woodworth: You never were worried about disappointing me.
Marcoux: Oh, God, I'm going to leave him right now. May I get a ride?
Woodworth: Yeah, teasing is part of it.
Read the full interview HERE.
