the secret of a happy marriage

A man and his wife had been married for sixty years. They had shared everything. They talked about everything, they had kept no secrets from each other except that now, as an older lady, the little old woman, she, for all these years of marriage had a shoebox on the top of her closet and in the early days, when they first got married, she told her husband never to open it or ask about it.

So for all these years, he had never even thought about the box, he just put it out of his mind. But now, she’s older and she’s sick and the doctor said she’d probably not recover so they’re trying to sort out their affairs. The guy took down the shoebox, took it to his wife’s bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents then she said, “Well, when we were to be married, my grandmother told me that the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, that I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.” Well, the husband, now also an old man, was moved, he had to fight back the tears.

Only two precious dolls are in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all the years of living and loving. So he’s almost bursting with happiness. “Honey”, he said, “that explains the dolls but what about all this money. Where did it come from?”

And she said, “Well, that’s the money, I got from selling the dolls.”