Iliana's Journey - 40 Years of Marriage

40 Years of Marriage — The Journey

Some love stories begin with perfect timing. Ours began with a 14-year-old girl, the first day of high school, and a boy who had no idea that I had already decided there was something very special about him.

The first time I saw Jesus Agudo, I felt something I could not fully explain at that age. I simply knew I liked him and I knew it deeply. For the next two years, I dropped plenty of hints, hoping he would notice me and somehow realize how much I cared about him. In my young heart, I believed he could be my soulmate.

Then life interrupted my plans. At the end of my sophomore year, my family moved to Florida. I was devastated. Suddenly, the boy I had spent two years hoping would notice me was hundreds of miles away.

For two years, I did not see or hear from him. But I never completely forgot him. I wondered about him. I wondered what might have been. Most of all, I wondered whether the feeling I had carried since I was 14 had meant something.

Eventually, my family decided to return to New Jersey. This time, I wasn't going to leave the answer to chance. I found his telephone number through a friend and called him.

He answered. The next day, we met.

That teenage girl could never have imagined everything that would follow that phone call—marriage, two children, financial struggles, careers, moving from state to state, raising a family, speaking across the country, becoming empty nesters, devastating injuries, recovery, and eventually growing older together.

That boy became my husband.

And more than four decades later, we are still walking this journey together.

Our First Decade: Building a Life With What We Had

We married at 18. At 20, we welcomed the first of our two sons, and by 24, our second son had arrived. We were young parents trying to build a family while surviving on one income.

Money was tight, very tight. There were times when the paycheck seemed spent before it even arrived. We lived paycheck to paycheck. We drove crappy used cars. We didn't have much financially, and there were certainly moments when life felt difficult. But we had each other.

Looking back, I realize something important: we didn't wait until life became comfortable before allowing ourselves to be happy. Our happiness wasn't sitting inside a bank account.

It was sitting around our dinner table. It was in our children. It was in the little things we did together. It was in knowing that, even when we didn't have much, we were building something that mattered.

Those early years taught us that struggling financially and being unhappy are not the same thing. We didn't have everything we wanted, but we had a family we loved. And somehow, we kept going.

Our Second Decade: Sacrifice, Change and Family

From our late twenties through our thirties, our boys grew into teenagers and Jesus continued building his career in wireless telecommunications. His work sometimes required us to move from state to state. Every move meant another adjustment. Another home. Another community. Another chapter.

Toward the end of that decade, his career began progressing more quickly, but advancement came with sacrifices. Moving took a toll on our family. There were decisions that had to be made not simply for ourselves, but for our children and our future.

We were still living close to paycheck to paycheck, still figuring things out, and still doing our best. But through every move and every uncertainty, one thing remained constant: We were a family. We supported one another.

Sometimes marriage isn't about having the perfect answer. Sometimes it is two people looking at an imperfect situation and saying, "We'll figure this out together." That is what we did.

Our Third Decade: Trials, Purpose and Perspective

By our late thirties and forties, life was changing again. One son was heading to college while the other was beginning high school. Were we living the perfect marriage? Absolutely not.

We had ups and downs like everyone else. Fortunately, there were far more ups than downs. When difficult moments came, we learned to work through them with time, reason, patience, compromise and understanding.

We learned that winning an argument isn't nearly as important as protecting the relationship. Then our family entered a period of trials and tribulations when our youngest son experienced serious challenges. Those experiences forced us to look at life differently.

We began asking ourselves deeper questions about what really mattered. We became passionate about appreciating life, and eventually that passion became something we shared with others. For several years, our family traveled around the country speaking at high schools about life appreciation. Imagine that.

The young couple who once struggled to make ends meet was now standing before young people, sharing lessons learned through our own struggles. It became an extraordinary chapter in our lives, especially because we were able to experience it with our youngest son. Our difficulties had given us something unexpected:

Purpose. Sometimes the experience you would never choose becomes the experience that changes the way you see everything.

▶ Listen

Our Fourth Decade: When "In Sickness and in Health" Became Real

Our late forties and fifties brought another transition. Our boys were now men. Our oldest son married. We became empty nesters and began rediscovering life as a couple. For the first several years, we had fun.

We took road trips. We visited nearby places and distant cities. After decades of raising children, working, moving and handling responsibilities, there was finally time to enjoy a different pace of life together.

Then everything changed. I sustained major spinal injuries. The final years of this decade became some of the hardest years of my life. My health deteriorated dramatically. I lost nearly 50 pounds, eventually reaching a dangerously low weight in the 90-pound range.

There were moments when my life itself was in danger. The man I first saw when I was 14 years old was now standing beside me as I fought to survive. Jesus became my rock.

He stayed beside me through my recovery, through the uncertainty, through the fear, through the changes to my body and through the realization that some of my medical challenges would remain with me for the rest of my life.

When you're young and you hear the words "in sickness and in health," you understand what they mean intellectually. Decades later, sometimes life teaches you what those words actually require.

Love isn't only romance. Sometimes love is caregiving. Sometimes love is patience. Sometimes love is sitting beside someone when there is nothing you can do to fix what they're experiencing. Sometimes love simply says:

"I'm still here." I survived. My life changed, but I survived. And he was there.

Today

Today, our life is simpler. We spend a lot of time at home. Jesus works from home, and I continue dealing with physical challenges that will likely remain part of my life.

But I am still here. My husband is still here. Our children are grown.

And the teenage girl who once chased a boy around high school hoping he would notice her can now look back across more than four decades and see what came from taking a chance and making one telephone call. What a journey that call began.

What Four Decades of Marriage Taught Me

Marriage has obstacles, but it also has clear paths. Throughout life, we constantly make choices about how we respond to what happens around us. Some choices move us closer together. Others can push us apart.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned is the importance of being conscious about our reactions. It is easy to react immediately when we are hurt, frustrated or angry. It takes greater strength to stop, think, listen and choose our response carefully.

I have learned the value of compromise. I have learned patience. I have learned understanding. I have learned that a positive attitude doesn't mean pretending difficult things aren't happening. It means deciding that difficult circumstances will not have the final word. I have also learned something that I believe is extremely important:

Never forget to love yourself.

Marriage does not mean losing yourself inside another person. Two people must bring themselves to the relationship, support one another and continue growing individually as well as together.

Marriage takes two. You cannot carry a lifetime partnership alone. Having a supportive partner beside you through life's changing seasons can make an extraordinary difference.

What I Am Most Proud Of

I am proud to be a mother. I am proud to be a wife. But I am also proud of the woman I have become.

Life has tested my resilience more than once. There have been times when circumstances could have defeated me, but I discovered strength inside myself that I didn't always know was there.

And I am still growing. After everything life has brought me, I recently began another chapter: PINK Ladies Empowerment, a movement created to encourage women to recognize their strength, share their experiences and empower one another.

At this stage of my life, I understand something my 14-year-old self couldn't possibly have understood: A beautiful life is not necessarily an easy life. It is a life that you continue to live.

If I Could Leave You With One Message

Never give up. Not on yourself. Not automatically on the people you love. And certainly not on life simply because the road becomes difficult.

Think carefully before you act. Give yourself time before making decisions that cannot easily be undone. Learn when to compromise, when to listen, when to forgive, when to speak and when simply to hold someone's hand.

Four decades of marriage have taught me that love changes. Young love may begin with butterflies and excitement. Then love becomes building a home.

• Raising children.
• Paying bills.
• Changing jobs.
• Moving across states.
• Celebrating successes.
• Surviving disappointments.
• Watching children grow up.
• Facing illness.
• Holding each other through fear.

And waking up one morning realizing that the person beside you has witnessed almost your entire adult life. I was 14 years old when I first laid eyes on Jesus Agudo. I was 18 when I married him. We could never have known what the next four decades would bring. We simply lived them.

• One year.
• One challenge.
• One celebration.
• One decision.
• One day at a time.

And after everything, the struggles, the moves, the children, the careers, the adventures, the trials, the injuries and the recovery. Here we are.

• Still together.
• Still growing.
• Still living.
• Still choosing to make the best of the life we have.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons of our journey: A lasting marriage isn't a story about two people who never faced storms.

It is the story of two people who kept finding their way through them together.