At a holiday party last year, we met a couple who playfully established three off-limit topics for our conversation. This being New York, the topics were: real estate, our children’s schools and our careers.

Quickly establishing the fact that both pairs had been married more than three decades, the husband launched in with this opener: “How did you get through the most difficult period of your marriage?”

We hadn’t even been to the drinks table yet!

Yet Chris and I said, almost simultaneously: “We stuck it out.”

Sticking it out is not advisable in every situation obviously. A lot of life is luck of geography or circumstance, good health or poor, chance encounters. What we meant was there hasn’t been a magazine-article “formula” for staying married; no weekly romantic dates (unless you count our Sunday walks), no therapy (okay, some therapy).

Simply not leaving—the room, the apartment, the marriage, during the worst moments has been a sort-of strategy.

In fact it was at the top of a list of rules Chris and I created together, years ago, after one of our worst fights, which he found in his notebook recently. As you read the list, keep in mind we are not shouting, yelling kind of people, as indicated by rule number 3: "no loud talking."

The Rules
Given: No divorce
Love always
1. no past grievances
2. no generalizations
3. no loud talking
4. no crying
5. talk about immediately
6. look for resolutions
7. no sarcasm

One of our rockiest periods of time, if you care to know, was about 18 years ago when we couldn’t conceive a second child for age- and health-related reasons. I blamed Chris for putting career first, for suggesting, mildly enough, as we hovered around 30 years old, that we put off starting a family a bit longer until he become more established in his work.

Later, I bitterly blamed myself for giving in so amiably, for naively believing there was plenty of time. I could not see the future, of course, that things would not work out, and it is hard to describe how tormented I felt then because I am so contented with our family of three now—but once in awhile it flares up like an oil rig fire.

And when it does, it is as if everything I love about Chris turns from good to bad: his work ethic and tendency to plan things out in such sensible-seeming terms—quite different from my "let's-just-give-it-a-try" approach.

Chris’ book publishing sphere has become a dangerous trigger at times, as if all the people in it were complicit in our failure, because in my mind, it was book-making that caused the delay—and I have to fight the impulse, even now, to avoid book-related events like the holiday party at which we met the couple who set rules for our conversation.

Our bad luck wasn’t his fault, but Chris was handy for faulting and, by the time we reached our crisis point, we’d been together 20 years and I had experienced his staying power. So maybe I knew it was safe to rage and rage and hit all the no-no's on the list?

Chris is my own ligustrum ovalifolium, I’ve decided, otherwise known as a privet hedge. These hardy plants can withstand any amount of buffeting in the stormiest weather. Along with other small trees and plants, they create sheltered pockets in which other plants can flourish.