Old-Marrieds Losing and Winning the Newlywed Game

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In honor of St. Valentine's Day, Pastor Dad and I attended a banquet this weekend with other church-going couples. Actually, we attended 3 but at only one did we play the traditional quiz game designed to show everyone how well spouses know each other, The Newlywed Game.

At this banquet it was announced that three games would be played throughout the evening to determine who the participants would be in that final prize-winning game. I looked at my husband and said, "You know that as the guest speaker and wife we are automatically going to be chosen as one of the couples no matter how well we do in the early games." And my theory might have been correct, but we'll never know. As one of the runner-up couples in the preliminary rounds we became one of the six doomed lucky couples. Mmm-hmm.

So there we were. We were the longest-married couple of those chosen. Obviously we should know each other pretty well after 35 years of marriage, right? Well, yes  but the score certainly didn't reflect it! We came in d.e.a.d  l.a.s.t.

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Did we know all the answers? Uh, no. Not only weren't they primarily made up of the standard fact questions like, "What is your wife's favorite perfume?" but even for the ones that were we have a lot more information to remember than those who have been married only a few years! Most questions were more thought provoking though. And one or two were just plain provoking. :)

Then there were the answers that we deliberately missed. Did we lie? No, but we chose answers that were the most edifying and least embarrassing for our spouse:  answers that portrayed our beloved at his or her best and not as the sometimes unpleasant person that each knows the other is capable of being.

We're used to looking at each other through eyes of love and seeing beyond each other's struggles. After all, it isn't unusual to see couples who have been married as long as we have been that are made up of a person who is bald and one whose weight went from 135 to 200 pounds during the child-bearing years. It's just unusual when you consider the way it affects this couple.

The funny thing was that neither of us knew that the other was going to take the edifying approach when answering about each other. Ultimately we each ended up telling on ourselves by choosing answers that we think to be closer to the mark and each was pleasantly surprised by the answers our spouse gave about us.

So, why did we do so poorly in the game? Do we not know each other very well? No, after 35 years of marriage we know each other all too well:  well enough to know where the hot buttons are and well enough to know that we'd like to be married to each other for at least 35 more years if the Lord gives them to us.

In other words, we each esteem the other more highly than we do ourselves. We may have lost a game but we definitely proved that we possess the greatest prize of all.