In a world where divorce has almost become a norm, finding a lasting relationship has become a rarity. In this episode, Emmalou Penrod spends time with her husband David Pendrod to talk about the secret of their long-lasting relationship. They share some of the heartwarming moments they had which built the foundation of their marriage. At the heart of it, they remind us how every relationship has a learning curve that you either learn as an individual, or learn from your spouse.
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What I Have Learned from My Spouse of 46 Years
My guest is my best friend and husband of 46 years, David Penrod. David, welcome.
Thanks for inviting me. I look forward to our interview.
We’ve collaborated on several projects over the years, haven’t we?
We have indeed.
I’ve made the observation. I found and discovered it too of myself as well that quite often, we become irritated and frustrated with the differences that you will find in a marriage between two unique individuals. Over time, I have learned that it’s much more beneficial to learn from those differences, to get a different perspective, to find out what you can learn about your spouse rather than being annoyed that they’re not exactly like you. As I spent some time reflecting on this, I’ve come up with five lessons. There are more, but I want to talk about five things I have learned from you that have helped me in my life.
The first is commitment. I remember when we were engaged, one time, out of the blue you said, “Which terms of endearment do you prefer?” I thought that was a funny question until I realized that was your way of saying, “I want to treat you the way you want to be treated.” That indicated to me that you cared. That’s sweet. Do you remember that time we went on a bus tour to New York City? It was a long day. We had to drive up from Maryland and then drive back. I remember becoming cross, tired, irritated, and taking it out on you and lashing out at you. Having one of those silly quarrels over nothing that you sometimes do when you haven’t been married long and saying some nasty and rude things to you before I flounced onto the bus.
As I sat down, I felt bad and thought, “He’s not even going to sit with me,” but you did. You walked on the bus, you walked down and you sat right next to me. It hit me that for you, this wasn’t a silly junior high crush thing. This was a commitment, a promise you had made to be with me, to help me, to serve me and be loyal to me. It was humbling. It made me realize that I needed to deepen my commitment to you and treat you with a little more appreciation. That was a profound lesson for me. Do you remember that?
I don’t remember trying to teach you a lesson. I remember that I knew that we had been through a lot that day and when someone is tired, they’re not at their best. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
It’s much more beneficial to learn from a different perspective. Click To TweetThat was great. That was kind. Do you remember the time you were in college? We started our family and you were working full-time and going to school full-time. We were in that struggling phase trying to keep afloat. I was trying to help out by sewing clothes for our children and had recently found out that there was going to be a fabric sale. I went to you saying, “Is there any extra money? Could I go get some material at this fabric sale?” You whipped out your wallet, opened it up and held the whole thing out to me like, “Take everything I have.” That touched me. That generosity, “All that I have is yours.” As I thought about that, I realized it wasn’t just money, you were also generous with yourself, your time, anything you learn and your talents. You were generous with helping me. That’s another profound lesson I learned from you.
I’m glad I was useful for some things there. I did not want to hold anything back. I figured you shared with me when I had problems that I needed to address. Anything that I obtained in business or whatever, I was more than happy to share with you.
It was always a partnership, wasn’t it?
Absolutely.
I remember you teaching our children that you don’t go into it. It’s not a 50/50 because there are times when maybe one partner can’t reach their full 50%. There’s a gap in the middle. Do you remember what you taught them?
Whenever you have two people trying to do 50/50, you never meet in the middle. It’s only when you are willing to give your all that you can come close to meeting the other person because of our perspective. If I were going for 50%, my perspective would be a bit short of the 50-yard line. Yours would be a bit short of your 50-yard line so there is that gap in the middle. We have to be willing to commit more whatever it takes, not just 50/50.
Speaking of parenting, you also taught me a lot there. You were the oldest in your family growing up. Your mother told me you had been taking care of babies since you were about eight or nine years old. I was the youngest in my family and I hadn’t had that much experience. I remember how much help you were especially with our first baby.
There were times that I knew you had a rough day. You were plenty worn out during the day and when the baby would wake up at night and needed to nurse, I was more than happy to get up, change his diaper, hand him to you and let you take care of your part without having to get out of bed.
Didn’t we have an arrangement? We acknowledged you had to get up and go to work every day. This was during a time when I could be a stay-at-home mother. We made the agreement that I would get up with them on weekdays and you get up with him on the weekend.
We specifically did that during those times when I was stressed. I thought it was important that you got some break, some downtime and some you time.
I appreciated that. I remember that when I knew you were on duty, I didn’t even wake up and I didn’t even hear them.
You took care of many things. One thing I appreciated about you is you seem to have the commitment and even acted like you enjoyed changing messy diapers. That was one thing I didn’t relish especially back in the old cloth diaper days when we had to clean them out, swish them in the toilet and put them in the dirty clothes or the diaper pail. You were also good about being willing to do the laundry, even the smelly stuff.
We could each bring our strengths to the partnership. We could each pursue the things that we felt we were good at and we enjoy doing. That was critical. You also taught me how to be an involved citizen. I remember that you would research. You would become familiar with the candidates and their platforms with any legislation that was being considered. You would research many sources and learn more than the rhetoric that was commonly heard. I also remember being able to talk over issues with you. I remember there would be times when you would tell me the candidate you were voting for and explain why you were voting for them. You would listen respectfully. I told you about my candidate and I wanted to vote for them. We would respect each other in our right to vote our conscience and then we would go to the polls and cancel each other out with no argument and no bitterness. That was okay. Do you remember that?
I remember it happened sometimes, but for the most part we did agree on most things. Usually, when we would go to the polls, because of our discussions, we ended up supporting the same causes and people. I don’t think that it was necessarily you’re one party and I’m the other party and neither the two shall meet.
Individual differences were allowed.
It’s always imperative to do that.
I have also appreciated the way you were always willing to help. I’ve seen many times when you were there to volunteer. You’re noticing when maybe someone is struggling with loading their groceries at the grocery store and you’re always willing to help other people. That’s a good quality. I appreciated learning more about that from you.
I’ve appreciated how supportive you’ve been when those things would happen. I remember one time, we were coming back and saw a car that was stopped in the middle of the road not going anywhere. I can tell that the guy had problems. I looked at you, I got out, you switched over to the driver’s seat and took over the driving of our car. I went back and helped the gentleman push his car out of the middle of the intersection where we could address what was wrong with his car. You have always been supportive of me doing stuff like that.
It feels good when we’re working together as a team. We seem to know what we need to do. I like that. They call that synergy.
You’ve been a good partner in doing things of that nature. You’ve also been supportive as I’ve become interested in building a business, getting interested in real estate and some self-improvement things. You’ve joined me in some of it and you’ve supported me in other things. I appreciate that. I wanted to tell you that I have watched you through many years. Not only watching and caring for our children but caring for the budget and making sure that we met our obligations with bills, making sure we saved a bit for the future. I have watched you as you have become involved with our church, neighborhood and community efforts to watch out for those around us, to observe when somebody needed a hug, a hand, or perhaps even some money or other assistance. You were observant of those things and either you got involved and did it yourself if it was something you could do, or you brought it to my attention so that we could powwow and see if there was something we could do together.
It feels great to be part of a team. Thank you so much. I love you and I’m grateful for you.
I’m grateful for you. My life wouldn’t be nearly as complete if I had to live it without you.
Thanks. There are many things that we can learn from our spouses and maybe that’s why men and women are different.
Henry Higgins’ questions about, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” is crazy.
Thank you, honey. I hope everyone there has a great day.