Long live our relationship!

I have so many, many friends and acquaintances with broken or fragile marriages. Learned of another one today. Seems like almost a daily occurrence.  Sad, isn't it?  Makes me a lucky fella. I had a good marriage. Lasted for 38 years.  Wish it were longer. But dear Jeanne died. Of Alzheimer's. Eight years ago. It was a blissful marriage. With lots of togetherness. Maybe we were separated for 10 days. At the most. Jeanne went on a vacation once. With her aunt. Without me. Of course, I survived. Now I'm in a 'relationship.' With Cristina, my amore mio (sweetheart). An Italian. It could be called a de facto marriage. Believe me. It's just as blissful as was my marriage to Jeanne. But it's different. In that we aren't physically living together all of the time. Only part-time. Several months a year. Though we see and talk to each other. Daily. On Skype. It's a nice arrangement.  We enjoy the best of two worlds. Italy and America. In some ways, we are two very different people. From different cultures. We have different likes and dislikes. But we blend. Wonderfully. We thrive on our differences. We have cultivated the art of acceptance. We encourage each other to be ourselves. Neither one of us would want to live with our clones. Long live our differences! Long live our relationship! --Jim Broede