TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

My 10-year wedding anniversary is coming up and it's a big deal for my husband and me for many reasons. I can start with the fact that we're polar opposites and end with the attempts I've made to drive him deep into the Sequoias and then speed away.

I'm being facetious, of course, but the fact of the matter is marriage is a battlefield and by no means for the weak. It's also not for the isolated. It helps to hear from other local couples who've been circling the wagons longer.

Allan and Michelle Berryman have been married 22 years. Michelle said the following when I asked about her marital experience: "At one point during our marriage, we had to seek counsel from another couple in our church who had been married for many years. We realized if we were to go our separate ways through divorce, our whole family would lose. Marriage is teamwork. It takes hard work, communication, and confidence we can go to each other for anything. Don't let the detours of life separate you from one another. Don't get caught up in building upon everything else and not each other."

Gilbert and Linda Watson have been married 43 years. Linda said, "I could not love (my husband) any more than I do now. The fact my marriage has lasted this long is kind of amazing because we really did not know each other that well when we married, so it has been an interesting journey. I know I did not try to change him and he did not try to change me. After all, we fell in love because of those differences. As long as you respect each other as individuals and are willing to talk things out, even when it hurts, all else will fall into place."

Larry and Jean Chapman offered the following through Jean: "I know now -- 46 years later-- that we didn't have a clue about 'in sickness and in health; for better or for worse; for richer or poorer.' Who we were then is not who we are now. We had to learn how to argue and resolve issues in healthy ways. Through the years, we have worked to forge a solid marriage that makes us better together than we would be apart. We have changed character traits that were detrimental to our relationship."

Personally, the best advice on marriage came to me from an unlikely source: a Fox comedy from the early part of the last decade, "Malcolm in the Middle." It wasn't typically a show aimed at marital advice, but one episode nailed it for me. The husband and wife were viciously fighting when the wife suddenly suggested each name three things that originally made them fall in love with one another. After their recitation, the mood softened and before you knew it, reconciliatory smooching was involved.

My husband and I have employed this trick for years. In fact, it's often the last thing that courses through my mind as I'm driving in the Sequoias, my husband's silhouette getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror before I finally decide to turn the car around and get him. (Again...facetious.)

I think back to the evening we met at a friend's house, and how he quietly followed me around, trying to find a way into my conversations while I ignored him. I remember how, toward the end of the night, my eyes locked on a delectable chocolate cupcake I told myself I couldn't have. I further remember that the very next moment, the guy who had been following me around finally got the hint and left. Or, so I thought. Within a minute, he was back, putting a white napkin and a chocolate cupcake in front of me.

"I could tell you wanted it," he had said.

I ate that cupcake. Later, I married that man.

I believe in marriage. I believe it will test everything I am. I believe there will be dark days, and yes, even dark years. I believe love is an action, not a feeling, and a choice, not a happenchance. I believe courage is quintessential in marriage and is in short supply these days.

You don't bolt because you didn't get your way. You don't leave because you've grown apart. And you most certainly don't walk away because you naively think something better awaits. (Just look at the used car market; even new models inevitably become someone else's problem.)

I wouldn't have lasted these 10 years if I couldn't remember the beginning, hope for the future, and be courageous in the interim.

Happy Anniversary, Charles. I hear there's a new cupcake place in town. Let's find a babysitter.

-- Heather Ijames is one of three community columnists whose work appears here every Saturday. These are the opinions of Ijames, not necessarily The Californian's. You can send e-mail to her at hijames@bakersfield.com. Next week: Inga Barks.