Secret to 70-year marriage: Divorce is never an option

WEST GOSHEN, Pa.—Nick and Jeanette Vita know the statistics all too well - 41 percent of first marriages end in divorce, 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce and 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce.

Yet they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary Sept. 27, and they attribute it to determination, and with personal vows that divorce will never be an option.

“There have been times he wanted to get rid of me and I wanted to get rid of him, but we just say no, we love each other and we are determined to stay together,” Jeanette, 88, said.

“Today, most people don’t even get married. They live together and if they don’t like it, they just leave. But you have to stick it out and try. Sometimes, it’s very, very hard.” Nick, 93, said it’s all about compromise. “We communicate with each other and we compromise,” he said. “If she wants to buy a new dress, I will say OK, but you only spend this amount. And we do a lot of things together. I take care of all the big things and she takes care of the small things. But no big things have ever come up.”

They met each other at a dance. Nick was 21, Jeanette was 16. They quickly fell in love, but Jeanette’s mother had a bad feeling the marriage wouldn’t work. Nick is Italian and Jeanette Irish, a bad combination, she reasoned. But Nick fell into Jeanette’s mother’s good graces, and they married at St. Monica’ Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia shortly after Jeanette turned 18.

They married in a year when the average house cost $6,600, the average wage was $2,800 a year, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball and the CIA was formed.