With 50 years of marriage under their belt, Michael and Nancy Lewallen look back on their relationship with love in their eyes and a smile on their face as they recall how they have been able to build a great life together, and they hope others can too.
The Habersham County natives, who married in March 1972, met at the Dairy Queen in Cornelia, which at the time used to be a local hang-out spot for young people in town, and Michael recalls the day like it was yesterday.
“I saw her, her big old brown eyes with her hair down to her waist and what I really thought about her was that she was always laughing and she had such an upbeat personality all the time,” Michael said.
After knowing each other for about a year, Michael said they began talking when they both began working at the same job. Since then, the pair have been inseparable and began dating, which while Michael said wasn’t as strict as younger generations are sometimes led to believe, it was definitely more formal than today’s dating.
“You actually had to go inside and meet the parents, I guess you could say a little bit more formal,” Michael said, adding that the first meeting with the father was a little intimidating.
Looking back on some of their first dates, Michael said he was surprised Nancy agreed to go deer hunting with him, which was one of his favorite activities.
“Nowadays hunting might be a little frowned upon a little bit but back then it wasn’t. But it was a little unusual to take a girl deer hunting,” Michael said. “It was neat because I didn’t know what to expect from her…we both loved the outdoors, in fact, all through our marriage we camped a lot.”
The pair dated for about six months before they decided to tie the knot, something that both Michael and Nancy wouldn’t directly recommend to couples now, they said laughing.
“Now I wouldn’t tell anybody to do that,” laughed Nancy. “You need to get to know one another a whole lot more. If anything you really need to go through some counseling, which would include everything, what you believe, your likes and dislikes, your values, financials, what kind of home you want, they need to learn to budget.”
As they grew together in their marriage, the couple said they experienced their own share of difficulties but sought support and comfort in their faith and learning to change their mindset from an individual to a pair, something they hope younger generations learn as well.
“It’s very simple, when you go into marriage, there is a very small word and it is ‘me’,” Michael said. “When you first get married, what you do and what you’ve been doing all your life, you need to change the ‘me’ to ‘we’. You need to put the ‘we’ there when you wake up in the morning. The ‘me’ part is gone and if you can get through that, you can get through it.”
With that change of mindset, Nancy said it will be easier for couples to adjust to thinking of others, especially if the couple is thinking about having children. With 50 years of marriage lessons under their belt, the couple has seen their fair share of not-so-beautiful life moments and shared their experiences with their children and others, offering a few words of wisdom to hopefully encourage younger generations of couples.
For Michael, one of the lessons he learned through marriage was to share in everyday moments with Nancy, including helping her around the home.
“My wife, we both worked, well I really for the first few years I didn’t comprehend what a woman running a household is,” Michael said. “She would come home from work, start a meal, then eat, then the dishes, then she’s over there ironing or washing. Her day didn’t end until late at night and then I decided that wasn’t right. I decided that I was going to split the chores with her. That is one of the biggest regrets in our marriage, that I didn’t do it early enough.”
When it comes to couple arguments, Michael reminds younger generations that the tongue is sharper than the sword.
“People are going to get into arguments, the main thing is that you can be arguing and you can say something and it will hurt very much,” Michael said. “It is very wise to think about it before you say it because you can’t bring it back. You can forgive but it can really hurt.”
Nancy’s philosophy that she continues to live by is to not go to bed angry. The couple said sometimes you look back at past arguments and realize that they were not as serious as they thought they were in the moment.
“You have to say ‘I’m sorry,” Nancy said. “If you have to go around the corner and pout about it for a few minutes, do it, but don’t let it get you down for the whole night.”
As the couple embarks on their 51st year together, they hope to continue to be by each other’s side and find new joys and special moments enjoying their retirement together.
“We want to enjoy the next 50, make it just a little bit better than the first 50,” Michael said.
“It’s not a Hallmark movie but you can make it go, and we’ve had a good one,” Nancy said.