"I'm really scared." I told my mom a few months before I was to be married, at the too-young age of 21. "Just cold feet, I guess."

As quick as a shotgun wedding she responded, "There's no such thing as cold feet. It's a myth. When I married your father I was nothing but excited about the wedding, the marriage, the whole prospect. Fear should not be a part of it."

During the next few weeks I interrogated my married siblings. All concurred, cold feet are not from fear of the wedding, but from fear of the marriage itself. After much pondering, I postponed the planned espousal. A couple of weeks after that I called it off completely.

He was a good guy and I was sorry to leave him in the lurch. But not as sorry as I would have been to go through the nuptials with those nagging doubts. I was certainly embarrassed to cancel so close to the day, but I wasn't willing to marry for the sake of social grace and saving face.

Nine years later, at the comparatively wizened age of 30, I was again preparing for marriage. This time to a younger man. (See, I was wizened.) This time without all the trimmings of a fancy wedding to distract me from the actual marriage. This time my feet could not get me to the altar fast enough. Not that I was racing a due date, or carrying illusions about the work involved in making a marriage work. But I knew that, being so sure about my chosen partner, the hard work would be that much easier. And worth it.

We are only in our third year of marriage so I can't exactly dispense wisdom on how to keep a marriage strong. But I have learned from my folks and my siblings, who collectively have 150 years of marriage behind them — all with their original partners. Some of the lessons I gathered from observation; some I soaked up as words of wisdom were repeated to each sibling contemplating marriage. Still more lessons were shared with me in the weeks prior to my own marriage.

Many years ago, after attending the lavish — some might say garish — wedding, of (we feared) an ill-suited couple, I heard my dad say, "If only the amount of money spent on a wedding could insure the quality of the marriage." Over the years I've attended weddings where the emphasis seemed more on the seating arrangements than on the marriage. Down the road, nobody's really going to care whether Aunt Sally had to sit next to Uncle Jimbo, whom she LOATHES, or that the Jordan almonds didn't match the bridesmaids' dresses exactly, or whether the bridesmaids even WORE dresses. (Well, maybe that they'd remember.) What they will know is whether the couple continued to be a couple.

My dad doesn't disapprove of a knees-up wedding bash. As the father of nine children he has hosted more than his share of wedding parties, and some pretty darn good ones at that. He does disapprove of a party that overshadows the marriage, and of wedding plans that obscure what you're really planning for — a life together.

I was 11 when my older sister married. I remember eavesdropping on a conversation she had with my mom just weeks before the wedding. The words weren't meant for my ears but it was obvious that neither objected to my listening. "My mom told me, and I'll tell you: If you're having a fight with your husband don't bring it to me." Here my mom paused and I could sense my sister's bemusement.

My mom continued, "If you let me in on the fight and its causes, I'll hold a grudge. You'll forgive and forget because that's what spouses do, but I'll be forever upset at how this in-law treated my child. So, for the good of my relation with your spouse, keep your fights to yourself." I saw a calm understanding come over my sister's face, and although I was too young to fully comprehend, those words stuck with me.

In addition to enhancing relations between in-laws, this rule works well with friends. Not long ago a friend came to me in tears over a fight with her mate. By the time she left she felt better, but I sat there pissed at the way she had been treated. For days I carried a rancorous air towards her mate. When I called to find out how things were going, for a moment she blanked on our conversation. And then: "Oh that! Everything's fine," she said casually. The two of them were back in love, madly.

My parents have come out on the other side of nearly fifty years together, still interested in, and to, each other. Kenny and I have a hard time fathoming where that length of time together will find us. For all the wisdom we have been given, I'm sure we'll have our own rules, too — rules such as, don't try to talk to your mate from the backyard while they're inside in the shower with the air conditioner and three fans running. It doesn't qualify as good communication.

Bernadette Noll lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband of three years, Kenny. She proposed to him one night in Chicago as they were driving around in a borrowed truck, more broke than either of them had ever been: "He said yes and we floated through the rest of the night happy as clams. I never did get him that ring though."

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