3 Happy couples

I was never a fan of marriage, thinking how many unhappy couples there were. And likewise even when I saw a happy couple, I was content that it wasn't me. I was having a great life much better than my youthful marriage which ended in divorce. I didn't want a mate. I didn't think I was good at it.

I've mellowed.

This will be the story of three happy couples all of whom found each other late in life.

Couple No. 1

He was my client when I was still working and later we were both members of a writing group. Freed from corporate life in retirement, he found another writer and they didn't exactly ride off into the sunset, but into the countryside. He claims this is the happiest time of his life.

Couple No. 2

She married young. Her first husband was older and when he died, it left her devastated. We watched her recover slowly and bravely. Her new man had sat next to her on the beach, but they didn't notice each other. Later they did meet and love bloomed. Each benefit from the other's world.

Couple No. 3

We met each other and were instant soul mates, at the wrong time and wrong place and ignored it. Decades later it was the right time, the right place over a fondue in Geneva. Had we given in earlier, maybe we wouldn't have been as successful. In the intervening years while we raised our daughters and developed our careers.

Maybe age brings a realization of what is important. We went through earlier years sweating the small stuff. Maybe we've learned how to help our mates find their dreams without sacrificing our own, because they are doing the same thing with us. Whatever it is, how lucky we are to come to the last part of our lives knowing the warmth of love and support at least I never expected to find and didn't know what I was missing until I found it.