The long road to a healthy, happy marriage

Cindi and Colin Alborough, pictured, celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary on March 7 and shared their love story and advice for a long and happy relationship with the Daily News. “Ours was not the typical fairy-tale love story of boy meets the girl of his dreams, falls madly in love in an instant and lives happily ever after.

I was 17 at the time and living in a boarding house, trying to finish my matric. I was ‘sort of ’ involved with a man twice my age who was emotionally abusive.

I had been through a rough, abusive childhood and needed to get out of the home, so I moved into a boarding house while I was schooling. I worked afternoons, some evenings and holidays to earn money to pay my way.

It was here in this boarding house on the South Coast that this young man, Colin, came to stay for a few months. He was working for the roads department which was building a new road at Port Edward.

There was definitely an attraction, but certainly not love at first sight! He was actually a real pain at first and very bossy, but cute, which suited me because I was also bossy.

We spent many hours together playing squash, going for runs and talking about our lives. We often played Clue-do, Scrabble and other similar games together and with the others from the boarding house, until the early hours of the morning.

We became the best of friends and started to share almost everything with each other. He eventually managed to show me what type of person I was involved with and I broke up with my boyfriend at the time. After a year of friendship, we both realised how we complemented each other and also realised we were in love, and I haven’t looked back since.

Colin is a strong, yet an amazingly gentle man, loving, caring, honourable and an incredible romantic.

Marriage is not an easy road and we have had our fair share of ups and downs, but there are a few things that I feel held us together. Firstly, the fact that we love each other deeply. That in itself demands that we respect each other.

Marriage is thinking of your partner first. It is being loyal and faithful and putting their needs before yours because once you do that, they will automatically want to fulfil yours as well. Marriage is also not throwing in the towel as soon as times get tough – and they will – it is through the tough times that you learn to draw close to each other and lean on each other for strength and support.

Marriage is never laying blame on each other, but communicating through problems and irritations. When there are issues that we don’t agree on, we talk them through and come to a resolution.

When arguments arise, don’t bring up old issues and have a slanging match. Listen to each other with an open mind and try and see things from your partner’s perspective as well, as much as you may or may not agree with them.

It’s the little surprises you do for each other. The little gifts that get shared, the surprise picnics that you arrange and the date nights that keep the spark alive as well.

Never enter into the union of marriage with the thought ‘if it doesn’t work out’ because then it won’t.

Enter into marriage with the thought that you want to be there for that person come what may.

If there were two thing that I could wish for it would be that every woman has what I have in my marriage and that we could have a much longer time together on earth as we still have so much to share.

Our marriage is still strong and we love and respect each other deeply.

He is my ‘forever until we die’.

I love my husband Colin with all my heart! He is my hero.” – Cindi Alborough