I Do

I DO presents the real voices of older married couples, who have endured life in the trenches together for fifty years. It proposes the survival strategies that they have personally developed and tested in over a half century of marital commitment. These are their stories and their secrets. As a clinical team, with a physician specializing in geriatric medicine and a geriatric social worker with a background in gero-psychiatry, we have had the privilege of witnessing extraordinary love stories every day. We see in our office, couples truly honoring the vows they took over a half century ago, stepping up when the time comes to care for one another "in sickness as well as in health". More often than not, these couples have faced a lifetime of challenges and developed constructive ways of working out solutions together. Some battled alcoholism, others were abused, or cheated on, some lost children, others were sterile and struggled with adoption issues. Money was often short and living spaces cramped. Illness was pervasive and age had taken its toll, bringing chronic health conditions. But all have retained the love in their eyes of their first meeting. That love is as young and fresh today as it had been more than half a century ago. How do they do it? How can these octogenarians and nonagenarians be as much in love today? We became simply fascinated by these questions which were puzzling us on a daily basis, while we were tending to their medical and psychosocial needs. We had to find out the answers...... With our encouragement, over a three year period, a group of eleven couples, who had connected through our office practice, decided to meet periodically and explore together the reasons for their extensive marital success. Little by little, they developed a level of comfort with each other, such that they could uncover common factors to their long lasting love. Each author committed to writing a chapter, disclosing openly the problems they had encountered during their own life and the solutions they applied. This book, I DO, was born.