The love story of 2023 - 60 years of marriage for Ruth and Lex Marshall

It is through these encounters that I have had the opportunity to learn about key life lessons and invaluable advice that people have hinted at or shared with me directly when re-telling their stories.

One such example, was the time I learnt about the ways that a long marriage is maintained, and this came out of a conversation with Lex and Ruth Marshall, who I interviewed for their 60^th wedding anniversary.

The secret to their happy marriage was a simple one - to not overthink things, to enjoy each other's company and not let the stresses of life be transferred into the way they treated each other.

The simplicity was something that took me a long time to fully understand but their words stuck in my mind all year long.

It's time to recount the love story that inspired me for most of this year, it's one I feel privileged to have heard and now share with you.

It all began when Lex met Ruth during a visit to her family home on the third Friday of January in 1962.

"I had been invited by Ruth's father to call in and meet the family and at that stage I didn't even know Ruth existed," he said.

"So he invited me in for a cup of tea and it must have been around 11 o'clock I suppose when the door opened on the right hand side and through the door came this gorgeous girl in green slacks and jeans ... and I just fell head over heels," he said.

Their first date however didn't happen until six months later due to Lex's work sending him up to Brisbane, but Lex and Ruth stayed in touch, exchanging letters until their first date in July.

By September they were engaged.

"Ruth's parents thought it was a bit quick but we didn't think so, we wanted to get married straight away and while everybody suspected it was something untoward, nothing like that happened for years," he said.

Ruth was 19 years old at the time Lex proposed and in those days permission was still required to be asked of her parents before they could get married.

"They gave their permission and they did well because we're still together aren't we darling?," Ruth said to Lex.

"Happily" he responded with a warm smile.

By March the following year, the lovebirds were married in the Scotch College Chapel in Melbourne with around 130 people in attendance.

"It was back in the days when country people had no qualms about travelling, all of Ruth's family and friends had to travel about 250 miles to attend," Lex said.

"They were thrilled because they could go to the cricket in Melbourne at the same time and catch up with different things in the city.

When you're from the country, you don't think anything of hopping into a car and travelling," Ruth added.

The newlyweds then went off on their honeymoon, to a house boat in Sydney.

The Marshalls then stayed in Melbourne for the rest of the year before moving to Adelaide where they lived for 45 years until they moved to the Bega Valley 15 years ago.

Ruth and Lex had two sons together, Scott and Brad, and it was thanks to them that they first thought of moving to the Bega Valley.

"The boys lived in Canberra and we spent a lot of time travelling from Adelaide to Canberra so we got a bit sick of that and decided to move closer to Canberra and began looking for places when we came across the Bega Valley," Lex said.

When asked how they managed to stay happily married all these years, Ruth gave a cheeky grin and said, "well we really don't fight because I look ugly when I cry and it's better for everyone concerned if that doesn't happen, but really Lex is too nice a person, so that has helped a lot."

Lex said the last argument they had, was 40 years ago - mostly because they decided to never let life's stresses feed into the way they treated each other.

"I think these days people get too complicated and think too deeply about everything, they don't just accept the fact that you have a bond, an attraction and you work with it," Lex said.

Lex and Ruth added that it was also important to learn to move on when a relationship wasn't working, noting that it was sometimes better to move on and separate then to let a marriage or relationship deteriorate.

Lex said for them, their relationship was built up on working as a team and on giving each other the each other the space to do their own things and to respect and support each other in everything the other person wanted to do.

"We also always liked to have plans it gave us something to look forward to, ours at the moment is to sell the business, downsize our home and travel around Australia," he said.