In selecting the married couples for our story, we narrowed 60 couples to 10 and even that was four more than would fit on the pages of the Roanoker. So we divided them up and have put four of their stories online. Here they are:
Kathy Guy and Bill Doughty met while working on a play for Showtimers in 1984 (he lighting, she stage managing) and were married in 1986. It was a great show of a wedding with “a boatload of actors, going until late into the evening,” says Bill. As you’d expect from two outgoing, fun people.
Bill, 78, worked in computers until retirement and Kathy, 66, is producing director of Off the Rails Theatre.
Kathy says they have developed three solid rules for success: “1. What you see is what you get. 2. Don’t even think you are going to change the other one. 3 (This is important one) If you think you are going to have a fight or get into a fight, you must get naked first.” They’ve gotten naked twice.
Bill says that “the worst mistake people make is ‘I figured once we got married, he would …’ and you can fill in the blank. We don’t expect people to change” unless it’s by choice “like when she gave up cigarettes.”
Their age difference has never been a problem, they agree. “Not so far,” says Kathy. “We roll with the punches of aging.” And of marriage.
Annette and Patrick Patterson met at 6:30 one morning in the laundry room at the girls dorm at Stetson University, went to a party that night, dated three years and tied the knot. It was the natural outcome for them, although there were a number of side trips on the way.
After the tragedy of 9/11, they decided to leave Florida and found Smith Mountain Lake to be of great appeal (“There’s nothing in the water there that can eat you,” says Annette, an avid competitive swimmer and coach). Ultimately he found a job as a high school guidance counselor, then principal at Roanoke Catholic High and she, at 38, faced “a midlife crisis. I always wanted to be a college president [she’d worked as an executive at Salem College in North Carolina],” but she “had an epiphany” and decided a life of service would better suit her.
Today at 51 (Patrick) and 49 (Annette), they’ve settled into a new home in east Roanoke County, he’s solidly in at Roanoke Catholic and she leads “the nonprofit that helps people advance their lives.” They have three daughters and are living their philosophies.
The marriage, says Patrick, is the result of “trust. Great partners are great friends. She’s my best friend. We respect each other and give each other space.”
“One attraction,” says Annette, “is the strong belief in the higher good. … We get energized by life’s opportunities and it helps steer our journey. We want peace in our lives and experience joy from a family unit providing a safe haven.”
Reid and Lisa Garst (51 and 50) work in their offices in Salem just feet from each other and that has been a true instructional course in the strength of their 17-year marriage. He runs Sterling Engineering Solutions and she keeps the finances organized. The company is a distributor for connectivity, automation and networking, a description that Lisa says is a wildly simplified version of what Reid does. She says it with great admiration.
Until recently, Lisa was a member of Salem City Council and the two have spent a lot of time and energy rearing 16-year-old daughter Ashby—a speech team champion. Working together, says Reid, “exposes us to the same stresses and you can’t come home from work and dump on somebody who hasn’t heard the story.” It works “with varying degrees of success,” says Lisa. “At times, we’re overwhelmed as a family and we have to step back. We don’t want to talk about work all the time. … I understand his stresses and I appreciate what he does and how smart he is.”
After the immediate stresses, says Lisa, “We wake up the next day and are still married.” She says they “talk constantly and not in a destructive way.”
“The third party in our contract,” says Reid, “is god and that is a great resource for conflict resolution.” Humor, they agree, “is critical, vital,” says Lisa. “If you don’t laugh, you’re gonna cry,” says Reid.
Because Lisa’s mother died when she was 6, “It is really essential to me to be available as a mom … [Ashby] is not a [burden] to us.” And, “I want to be married to Reid. I’d do it all over again. The longer I know him, the more I respect him.” Says Reid, “We just get better at it.”
Darlene Ratliff always had a thing for a man in uniform and when she first met Randy and he was wearing his Boy Scout outfit … Well, it didn’t take much more. They were in elementary school then and today they’ve been married for 47 years, which, says Darlene “doesn’t seem like that at all.”
The Ratliffs (both 68) raised two daughters and are now happily caring for their four grandkids. “We want to give the same life we gave our kids,” says Darlene. Randy’s retired as an executive for The Cincinnati insurance company and Darlene is still an RN at Carilion. A photo of the two of them as kids—he in his uniform—sits on a table in the living room.
Their marriage has been one with “little tension,” says Darlene, at least partly because of their strong bond with their church and their spiritual side. “We enjoy each other’s company.”
He has been a runner, a coach and triathlete for a long time, something she isn’t directly involved in. However, as Randy says, “Darlene … was actively involved in the kids’ activities. My coaching always involved some team—be it basketball, baseball, softball—that one of the kids was involved in. Attending their games was always a family activity with Darlene there with the other kids.”
The grandchildren are at the center. “We like to go on cruises, but these days, they’d be Disney cruises,” laughs Darlene. “We like having them around. We don’t hang around with people our age.” Randy points to the Biblical “cleave unto” and says, “We grow stronger together.”
