Marriage workshopFirst Things First will host its fifth Celebrate Marriage seminar for couples who want to create a healthy marriage. It’s designed for couples who are married, engaged or seriously dating.Relationship expert and author Michael Smalley will give practical tips to reconnect and strengthen relationships.The workshop is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, at Brainerd United Methodist Church, 4315 Brainerd Road. Admission is free, but preregistration is required since lunch will be served. Register online at firstthings.org or call 423-267-5383.
Flowers and candy will be popular symbols of love today. But the marriage ring represents true love for four couples whose love has spanned decades.
Grant and Rebecca Harris, Robert and Virginia Rayburn, Dick and Marty Landis and Van and Emma Robinson have been together more than two-thirds of their adult lives. With marriage track records ranging from 56 to 68 years, their fidelity exemplifies the “in it for the long haul” commitment of the Greatest Generation, something they undertook from jobs to marriage.
“It’s interesting because, when you talk with younger couples, they really wonder ‘Are we capable of doing that?'” says Julie Baumgardner, president and CEO of First Things First, a family advocacy group in Chattanooga.
“The definition of ‘extended,’ to them, is 20 years, and they think that’s a long time,” says Baumgardner, who writes a relationship column for the Times Free Press.