Choosing one’s partner or having an arranged marriage … it is likely luck that keeps people together (I still love my husband after 30 years. But I have no idea how we’ve stayed together, 11 February). We used to joke that the key to a successful marriage was a large mortgage. Now the husband is retired and here we are. Thirty-five years of wedded bliss, among other things I’ve blissfully forgot. Our daughter came home in the summer for a visit. One afternoon, lovely day, birds chirping, sun shining, all of us content with the world, she said: “What is it you guys do here?” And we looked at each other, me and the husband, and just shrugged. Like Emma Beddington, I don’t honestly know why we have succeeded in this union of better or worse. We’ve had our share of worse. Yet we persist. Perhaps consider your partner – all young and lovely – and ask yourself is this the person you’re willing to argue with about coffee grinds, or bed linen, or money, or insert your favourite topic here, and imagine them older and less lovely and repetitive and at times unbelievably annoying. If there is a glimmer of a chance that you will not drive a nail through their forehead, maybe they are a keeper. Not exactly the kind of thing I plan on saying at my daughter’s wedding, but those of us having logged a few decades know what I’m talking about. Lynn Crymble North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada I too, have been married for over four decades, without a clue as to how this has been achieved. We have lived together as a binational family, I have lived in “her” country for 30 years, she has lived in “mine” for 14 years now. We have raised three children, the eldest died from leukemia at the age of nine years. I lost everything of a 16-year business in 2008. And yet, here we are, flourishing, with grandkids, happy, and absolutely no idea what the future will bring. Erik Sweet Aspen, Colorado, US