Announcing Jerry and Shari’s new book … “Live and Love Forever “And They Lived Happily Ever After”

(12 Wedding Vows For Ever After)

This phrase borrowed, from fairy tale endings, is used to suggest that everything will work out perfectly  in the future.  It’s often used after a couple has just gotten married. “It was a beautiful wedding, and I just know that Jerry and Shari married November 29, 1959 will live happily ever after from this day forward until death do them part” … however it’s not like we real people magically live happily ever after certainly not forever … it takes a lot of hard work to keep a relationship healthy and happy as long as we live … And

 

Research shows that marriage contributes to good health, and people who are healthier tend to live longer. Married men and women appear to be less likely to have or engage in unhealthy behaviors. What is it about marriage that leads to a longer, healthier life? Is marriage a means to achieving better health? In our book of 12 Marriage Vows we are the living proof of the answers to these life changing questions.

 

First and foremost, we believe the wedding vows are sacred.  A permanent commitment to the sanctity of an eternal bond …. in sickness and health, richer or poorer,

In love and happiness

Till ever after is in our heart

And death as our witness

Shall never do us part

 

My wife Shari and I have been together 62 years as best friends.  From the time I saw her standing there in front of Indianola Junior High in 1953, I’ve never loved another. She was 13 and I was 14.  But she wouldn’t date me until 1957.  After 4 children, 12 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren we are still in love and happily married for 60 years.  (Not even the Chicago Cubs have that distinction, and I’ve loved them and divorced them many times since 1947).

 

Everyone wants to know “what’s your secret for being married 60 years looking as good as you two look and how can we get what you’ve got”?  With tongue in cheek, I get a laugh, when I say its ‘Sex, Kids and Rock-N-Roll.” But in essence, it’s a give and take loyal partnership and we have defied the conventional aging wisdom … which is retire at 55, 60 or 65 and start the dying process.  We however, in our early seventies, acquired three nursing homes then sold them in our late seventies and started a new career … co-writing this book about how our lifestyle vows form lasting happy relationships, or reform them if needed, to stay married and live happier and healthier forever …

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Surely no one lives forever

But as the rose dies in the winter

And rises again in the spring

Together with this wedding ring

We vow to live happily ever after

As together our souls live on

To another dawn

 

Our 60-year marriage is founded on these 12 Marriage Vows that are self-help or “self-health” for 104 million middle-aged readers and seniors who want to be as happy and healthy as possible—for as long as possible—by improving their lifestyle for a happy healthy marriage.  It’s a fun and easy-to-use book based on our proven 12 Wedding Vows that are designed to help readers (and those they love) live happy and healthy but more importantly avoid divorce and/or dying alone too soon!

12 Marriage Vows that Lead to Ever After

 #1 Think and Grow Younger Together

#2 Look Good Feel Good

#3 Sex, Kids and Rock-n-Roll

#4 Have a Purpose and Destination

#5 Our Body is Agile Our Mind is Fragile

#6 Consumption is for Living not Dying

#7 Fun is a Remedy for Stress

#8 A Better Me a Better You

#9 Be Nice and Satisfied

#10 Givers Are Go-getters

#11 Be Smart with Your Money

#12 Stay in Touch with Your Spiritual Self

 

Although the skeptics question our obvious longevity … “oh sure, you’re lucky to have the genes you inherited from your parents” … just wait a minute … my parents died of strokes in despicable nursing homes and Shari’s mother of Alzheimer’s due to a false diagnosis, her sister of cancer, her brother and her father of heart failure and cancer and a nephew of a stroke at the age of 49.  Scientists call it transcending the human genome. We are living proof that genes aren’t our destiny. And please don’t think we have an unfair advantage because of luck or circumstances.   I’m a skin cancer surveyor and Shari is bionic with a pacemaker for a congenital heart condition.

 

BACKGROUND:  Ironically, Americans are getting married later and later. The average age of first marriage in the United States is 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 23 for women and 26 for men in 1990 and 20 and 22 in 1960.  The average age for couples going through their first divorce is 30 years old.  According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, only about 5 percent of married couples ever achieve even a 50th anniversary.  That makes our 60^th Diamond Anniversary an exclusive club that we will enter November 29, 2019 just after I become an Octogenarian.

 

That 60-year anniversary club becomes even more exclusive with divorce rates exceeding 50% and the BABY BOOMERS exploding our health care costs with chronic aging embracing 125 million Americans with their unhealthy lifestyle habits.  Chronic diseases are the biggest threat to marital longevity.  Chronic aging is defined as a lifestyle that either creates chronic health problems or accelerates the natural aging process by exposing people to chronic diseases. It’s estimated that 61 million of aging American will die from active chronic diseases.  And they are being told by researches and medical experts that most are unavoidable and irreversible.  Why?  Because “Modern Medicine” makes its revenue based on this theory. Pills and treatment are the protocol.  Prevention through marital bliss is not their bag.

 

THE INSPIRATION:  We want to prevent or reverse these trends with our book about the 12 Wedding Vows principally for brides (and their grooms) past and present. In the book we have defined our personal success, not as a physical diet to lose weight or a makeover to be more attractive, but how to form and retain relationships to be happily married for life.   Much like the famous self-help book “Think and Grow Rich” we have coined the phrase “Think and Grow Young, Together”.  Meaning longevity of a marriage and life itself first requires adherence to a healthy lifestyle. We believe people will live longer once they learn how to live together forever after …

 

THE COMPETITION: Most experts who write books about health and wellness: 1) Don’t focus on marriage as a defining factor, 2) Don’t focus specifically on avoiding divorce, 3) Don’t propose how to prevent chronic aging as a solution to habitual problems such as mood, diet, exercise or sex drive, and that’s exactly what this book was designed to do … provide a template for turning your unhappy circumstantial marriage into a lifetime of joy and good health.