‘Til death do us part

Couples analyze what
makes a marriage pass
the test of time

Story by Julie Blakley

Amber Mees / Photographer

Artists Steven and Penelope Oshatz of Eugene, Ore., married for 44 years, sit among the paintings and photographs in their home studio.

After 44 years of marriage, Steven and Penelope Oshatz still think of themselves as two people with an everlasting bond.

The couple got married at 21 and 22 years old after meeting at art school in Los Angeles. Today, they live and work out of their home tucked in the hills near Hendricks Park in Eugene, creating artwork and designing silk scarves, which appear in productions and museums across the country.

Their marriage has lasted decades and has triumphed in the face of challenges, including a court battle over the draft, two children and physical changes.

“We’ve been so busy that time just goes by,” she says. “Living life, being involved in what we’re creating… I don’t think of time in linear terms. We’re just involved in being.” The couple stresses the importance of humor in all relationships.

“You have to have a sense of humor about everything.” Penelope Oshatz says. The Oshatzes say that they have learned how to make their relationship work for themselves, but they don’t have advice to give to other couples about sustaining a relationship.

“Advice does not have great value,” Steven Oshatz says. “Example is a much better way. Live a life that inspires other people. Follow what you want to be. Find joy in your partner.”

Steven Oshatz says that a marriage has to be about much more than physical attraction. More important is a focus on why you got together in the first place.

“The body changes and time seems to just go,” Oshatz says. “We are still intensely involved in what we were then.

” It is quite possible that the Oshatzes’ advice will come in handy for newlyweds Ruby and Daniel House.

Twenty-one and 22-year-old Ruby and Daniel House got married this spring in their hometown on the southern Oregon Coast. They joined more than 125 million Americans who also are married; they don’t plan on becoming two of the 23 million people who are divorced.

The odds are with them. There are about twice as many marriages, 7.5 per 1,000 people, as divorces, 3.6 per 1,000, each year.

And the divorce rate has been steadily declining since 1982 and is now the lowest since 1970, according to U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics.

Ruby and Daniel House met 10 years ago as middle schoolers in their hometown. Daniel House agrees with Steven Oshatz, saying he knows you can never base a relationship on looks.

“You have to love the person, not just their looks,” Daniel House says as his wife shoots him a sharp glance. “I mean, not that I don’t think you’re hot. You’re hot,” he quickly recovers, grabbing Ruby’s knee and looking her in the eyes. “But it has to be about more than that.”

Daniel House is the son of a local pastor and wants to model his marriage with Ruby off of his parent’s relationship.

They are focused on family, the church and their relationship — values that were reinforced at Corban College, a small conservative Christian school near Salem that they both attend.

“The motto here is a ‘ring by spring or your money back,’” Daniel House jokes of the student body. With a year until they both graduate, it looks like Ruby and Daniel House won’t be getting any refund checks.

Despite their youth, Daniel and Ruby House are entering into marriage with thought and seriousness, though they do have an easy optimism about their commitment. “Oh, this is a lifetime commitment,” Daniel House says.

Daniel House comes from a self-described “perfect” family and he wants to model his new life on the one he has always known.

The son of a pastor, he has two brothers and a sister. His mom home-schooled him and his siblings until middle school. Religion played an integral role in family life.

Amber Mees / Photographer

Daniel and Ruby House, minutes after saying their wedding vows, enjoy their first moments as husband and wife.

Daniel House’s father, who officiated the ceremony, requires all the couples he marries to have counseling before the big day. Ruby and Daniel had theirs at a church in Salem. “We scored 100 percent on the communication section,” Daniel House said, “so I think we will be pretty good at resolving issues.”

Regardless of how the Houses resolve their problems, no one can tell them how to make their marriage work.

They are young and in love, filled with optimism about marriage, their relationship and starting a family together.

Rachel and her wife Jen, whose last names have been omitted because of privacy concerns, also found the idea of family appealing.

Rachel and Jen live in New Jersey, where they are raising two sons.

While their marriage wouldn’t be recognized in many parts of the country, Jen and Rachel consider their 10-year relationship a “marriage” in every sense of the word.

“We planned on having kids and wanted to do everything possible both symbolically and legally to make the statement that we were a family,” Rachel says. “And we wanted a reason to throw a huge party so we could capture all of our friends and family completely inebriated on videotape.”

Rachel and Jen have sustained their relationship by living each day and spending time together.

Rachel says not a whole lot of advice can be given on how to ensure a successful union, although she says the secret to a happy marriage is a king size bed.

“Truly, it's not something you learn. It's just something you keep doing every day and over time, voila, you're still going,” she said.

While there are always many challenges present in sustaining a marriage, Rachel says that sustaining a same-sex relationship presents its own set of challenges.

“You can't be halfway in a same-sex relationship because it takes major cojones to be out,” Rachel says. “If you're only lukewarm in the relationship, you wouldn't have the energy or the desire to sustain the relationship and be up front about it every minute of the day, everywhere you go.”

While Rachel and Jen have overcome difficulties in sustaining a “non-traditional” marriage, they face many of the same relationship issues as any other couple.

There are societal pressures, but Rachel keeps a sense of humor about her relationship and her life.

They agree that humor and love based on more that just looks makes a marriage work. “Nothing is quite as attractive as an overweight suburban New Jersey lesbian mom driving a minivan with two car seats,” Rachel jokes. “These days, I have to carry a cattle prod to protect myself from all the babes.”

Rachel also says that a difficulty of being in a same-sex relationship in New York City area means sometimes having to fake having a husband.

Courtesy of Jen and Rachel

Jen and Rachel celebrate after a formal church wedding, one of four ceremonies they have gone through in an attempt to be considered legally married.

When creepy cab drivers ask her if she has a boyfriend she invents a fake husband who works for the NYPD.

Despite the differences among these three couples, they all share a connection — marriages they want to last a lifetime.

While they have differing opinions and circumstances, they all agree on the basic principles that make a relationship work — the importance being able to laugh at situations and the establishment of a strong bond.

Recent studies have found that sustaining a marriage is about more than a sense of humor and an emotional connection.

Sociologist Dr. Steven P. Martin found that college graduates had about one-third to one-fourth the divorce rate of non-graduates, a statistic that speaks to the role of finances in keeping a marriage together.

The National Marriage Project at Johns Hopkins University, which published a landmark report called “The State of Our Unions 2005,” supports many experts’ view that aggregate statistics don’t give a clear view of the chances that someone who gets married will stay married.

The Johns Hopkins study concluded that a couple’s ability to sustain a marriage has a lot more to do with economic status, education level and other socio-economic factors. They also say the aggregate statistics, which lump all people together over the age of 15, don’t measure length of marriages, couples who separate and then get back together, or the divorce rate for people who’ve been married more than once.

For example, couples who have annual incomes over $50,000 are 30 percent less likely to divorce than couples with annual incomes of less than $25,000, according to the National Marriage Project.

Steven Oshatz says that getting married young in the 1960s was easier than it is now. He said when he and Penelope first moved to Oregon he had $20 in his pocket. “It was a different time. Existing was simpler. There was less concern for finances. People made $15 to $20 a week,” Steven Oshatz said.

Steven Oshatz thinks marriage and life are more complicated now, which may be why Americans are getting divorced. The most quoted divorce rate seems to be that one out of every two marriages fails.

But the John Hopkins study concludes that making these kinds of claims cannot be made. The “State of our Union” report warns that the declining divorce rate may have more to do with more unmarried people living together than long-term marital bliss.

One clue to this trend is that the marriage rate also is down 50 percent since 1970, to about 40 marriages per 1,000 people from 76 per 1,000 37 years ago, according to the study.

Today, about 8 percent of all households are made up of unmarried, heterosexual partners.

There also are no definitive, independent statistics on how many same-sex couples are living together or whether the consider themselves “married” or not.

While Rachel is making up fake husbands in New York, Ruby and Daniel House are dreaming about their future together.

One thing that all of the couples agreed on is that marriage and relationships are hard work— but the work is worth the payoff.

“Marriage is hard work. So suck it up, people,” Rachel says. “You might not be madly in love every day. But you just have to believe that you will one day again and soldier on. The bottom line is, do you want to die alone and have your body discovered when the smell drifts into the hallway? I think not.”

Steven Oshatz says that you have to take things in stride when trying to make a marriage work.

“Embrace chance and chaos,” Steven Oshatz says. “Appreciate good fortune. And yelling helps.”

Steven Oshatz also says that, just like any relationship, every marriage is different.

“Marriage shouldn’t be looked at as an institution,” he says. “There is a huge industry that’s grown around getting married. It’s about the day to day, not about the trappings.”

Steven Oshatz believes that our society has made it difficult to sustain relationships.

“The government does not provide a sustainable way of living for families with an equitable support system,” he says. “I don’t think it creates sustainable values. We don’t live in a sustainable culture. Our whole rhythm of living is not sustainable.”

While Steven Oshatz believes that there are societal issues that make it challenging to sustain a marriage, Rachel thinks it is more about the two people and putting in the time and effort to make things work.

“The biggest challenges don't come from society,” Rachel says. “They come from lack of time to sustain the relationship because so much time goes toward the kids, they come from financial pressure, they come from not having any time to spend alone pursuing the things you loved which made you interesting to the other person in the first place.”