5 Shortcomings
On their 50th wedding anniversary, everyone were pestering Mary and George to tell their secrets to such a long marriage. The couple were grinning all the time, but they weren’t talking. They were quite happy simply sitting side by side and holding each other’s hand.
“Mary, come on now. Tell us your secrets,” urged Ruth, Mary’s good friend. “Give all the youngsters here a hint. Help them look forward to their own 50th anniversaries.”
“Yes, yes. Help us out. Please do tell,” everyone agreed.
Mary finally relented, “There isn’t any secret. Really.” Everyone was disappointed. Then Mary continued, “I did make a vow to myself on wedding day though.”
“Vow? What vow? How come I haven’t heard you talk about it?” Ruth was curious.
“It isn’t anything big, Ruth. Really,” Mary said. “You know how I always say that no one is perfect? So I thought I would just pick 5 shortcomings of George, and if he ever do anything wrong because of these shortcomings, I would never get angry with him.”
“What 5 shortcomings did you pick?” Ruth asked.
“Oh… that… You don’t expect me to have time on our wedding day to do the picking, do you?” Mary smiled.
“Actually, I never did quite decide on what 5 shortcomings to pick after our wedding either. Anyway, whenever George made me really really angry and I felt like divorcing him, the vow would creep into my mind. And I would say to myself, ‘It’s your lucky day, George. This is one of your 5 shortcomings’ doing. So I won’t get angry with you.’ And then I would feel so much calmer.”
“You know what, darling?” George suddenly interrupted. “I made a vow too on our wedding day… just like yours.”