No! Robert Redford got married last week! Wait, I am already married so it doesn’t matter. Or does it?

My friends were quick to post on Facebook that Robert got married. Everyone must remember that I just wanted to meet Robert Redford. I would stammer through an introduction and then stand there like a speechless person if that chance encounter happened. I have also stated that it is his persona in movies that I am infatuated with.

But he got married! Maybe I am already married to my Robert Redford. Maybe I just have not admitted it to myself or to him. I would never admit that to my spouse. He is just as cute as Robert Redford, but he does not fit my persona of Robert Redford. Since I don’t know Robert in real life, I can only know his movie persona.

My husband could be my Robert Redford, and he probably is. The difference is that I live with him. I could also be his Ursula Andress (remember we are old and if you don’t know who they are Google them) but he doesn’t know Ursula, and he lives with me.

Alas I am a Guiding Light fan. I will be left adrift after watching Guiding Light for 40 some years when the show ends in September. Hear my tears, they are loud. Bill and Lizzie on Guiding Light got married. They are ecstatically happy. Weren’t we all ecstatically happy when we married the person of our dreams? The movies and television paint us a picture of married bliss and cute husbands and beautiful wives. I don’t think I have ever heard or seen Robert snore, and we can’t smell bad breath on Bill and Lizzie as they kiss first thing in the morning. You know it’s there, we just don’t mention it in the movies. So Robert becomes a hunk, and Bill and Lizzie show us that bliss is beautiful.

Most of us get married with expectations. Could anyone ever live up to our expectations? Marriage isn’t always a bed of roses; sometimes it is a bed of thorns. I think pink, he thinks black. I think cat, he thinks dog. I want to go to the movies, he wants to golf. It is the little things that get to you in the end.

An article on MSN this week stated that a study in the journal Motion and Emotion revealed that pictures of your spouse in the high school yearbook can tell you whether your marriage will survive. People with strong smiles have less divorces.

We have been married almost 39 years. I could say they were 39 years of bliss, but I have to think that anyone that would say that a marriage that had lasted that long and had been blissful all the time would be lying. No marriage is perfect. Sometimes it really is not perfect. I have complained about him and he has complained about me. Yes, we have hollered and screamed at each other and been mad at one another. I would worry if we never showed those emotions because then I would feel we would not care. People who are married hurt each other, forgive each other and hopefully always love each other.

Marriage is a lot of work. I am a stubborn Polish person, and my husband is a stubborn German person and that does make for some clashes. We both must always be right. But he is my Robert Redford, unless of course the movie persona Robert becomes available. Remember the movie personas don’t snore. I should also check his yearbook picture to see if we match the study.

I must admit I sometimes do not understand people who do get divorced that wish they had never gotten married especially if they have children. If I had never married the exact person I am married too I would not have the exact children I have. What a loss that would have been.

So if you are contemplating marriage, dream of the Robert Redford’s and smile at the Bill and Lizzie’s but remember the real thing is better if you are prepared for the black and pink, Polish versus German, I am right, he is right, I complain, he complains. It does happen in every marriage.

And remember according to the Motion and Emotion journal you need to check out the picture in the yearbook and look for a strong smile. If it is there you will be married forever.

“Here Comes The Bride.”

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net or visit her blog at www.justalittlefluff.blogspot.com.