With celebrity splits in every news cycle and the oft-quoted statistic that 50 percent of legal unions end in divorce, it’s sometimes hard to have faith in marriage. Still, many New Yorkers have made it to cutting the cake on their golden anniversaries. For the past nine years, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has thrown a Valentine’s Day Sweethearts Reception to honor Brooklyn couples who have been married for half a century or more. Yesterday, the annual event took place at the El Caribe Country Club in Mill Basin. So what does it take to stay married for five decades? We asked some of the long-married pairs about how to stay together — through the good times and bad.
Fanny (82) and William Glassman (85)
Sheepshead Bay
Married 63 years
When Fanny emigrated from Poland in 1948, she and her sister rented a room two doors down from William. William’s mom invited the sisters over one night to watch “The Ed Sullivan Show.” “We had the only TV on the block, a black-and-white 6-inch RCA,” says William. “Fanny didn’t speak English, but I knew some Yiddish. We got along.” The pair married nine months later. William has a prime piece of advice for any man wanting a successful marriage. “I always get the last word: ‘Yes,dear,’ ”he jokes. But, he admits there’s more to it than that. “When you get married, you say ‘for better or worse.’ Right now, it’s for the worse,” says William, revealing that his wife was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. “Ninety percent of the time, she makes sense, but I also have to live with the 10 percent of the time when she doesn’t. That’s life.”
Georgia (86) and Joe Mark (89)
Midwood. Married 67 years
In 1943, a friend invited Georgia over because she was entertaining four soldiers and needed one more girl to keep the numbers even. One of the soldiers was Joe. “We hit it off right away,” says Georgia. “I married him after 15 furloughs.”
The couple, who had a star turn on Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Marriage Ref” in 2010, say the key to their marriage is forgetting about fights. “We’re not saints,” explains Georgia. “We bicker. But we don’t keep an argument going and we don’t carry a grudge.”
The Marks also believe that cultivating separate interests — golf and criminal justice classes for him, cooking for her — has helped.
“We’re not tied together by a rope,” says Georgia. “He’s got his interests, I’ve got mine. Things are more interesting that way than being together all the time.”
Marion (75) and Joseph Broxton (77)
Crown Heights. Married 57 years
Marion grew up in Harlem, but would often spend her summers with an aunt in Brooklyn, where she’d hang out with pals on the stoop. When she was 15, she noticed a boy across the street, and a friend offered to introduce them. “He said hello, turned right around and went back across the street,” remembers Marion. “I said, ‘That’s gonna be my husband.’ ” Almost six decades later, Marion stresses two-way communication. “Little problems can become problem-problems. I’ve heard of people separating over the most foolish things,” she says. “Sometimes people talk at one another and they don’t take the time to listen. You have to be patient and listen.”
Hunny (82) and Elliot Reiken (88)
Canarsie. Married 63 years
The Reikens met in the summer of 1946 at a resort in the Catskills, where Elliot and his identical twin brother were musicians and Hunny and her identical twin sister were waitresses. “They tricked us into a date,” says Elliot. “They couldn’t tell us apart, and we couldn’t tell them apart. One day, we walked with them to town. They decided among themselves, ‘Whoever you walk with, ask his name.’ They stuck with the name.” The two couples eventually formed a quartet called the Twintones, and had a double wedding in 1948. They lived together in a two-family house until Elliot’s brother died 15 years ago. Elliot hesitates to give advice because, as he puts it, “Either you get along or you don’t.” But while it wasn’t common for couples to live together in his day, Elliot recommends pairs today test the water. “You don’t know someone until you live with them,” he jokes.