'Til death do us part?'

After a quick trip to the florist three days before her wedding, Leslie Cobb Alger had little left to do to be prepared for the big day.

Months of planning allowed the 27-year-old bride to be time to take a deep breath and relax before walking down the aisle. Years of sharing thoughts and dreams with her soon-to-be husband, Bob Alger, had hopefully prepared them both for the marriage.

“Probably one of the best things about our relationship is we are very communicative,” she said, a few days before her June 3 wedding. “We have discussed all the issues such as religion and children and what we feel about things on deep issues such as abortion and the death penalty. That’s why we know each other so well, and that’s why we decided that marriage is the next step.”

Leslie, who grew up in Jacksonville and graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts, always thought she would marry right out of college. There had been two serious relationships that might have lead her on that path, but didn’t.

There was also that list she made one night with her friends the list she thinks most females make as they search for that perfect person to spend the rest of their life with. On it were those descriptive words such as trusting, loyal, caring, loving, dependable, handsome that make a young woman croon just thinking about them.

“Fortunately for me, that is going to happen,” she said, referring back to the list. “(Bob) fits every criteria I ever set forth. I think all girls who are college age are looking for, searching for, dreaming for the perfect man, perfect wedding, perfect marriage. Who wouldn’t?”

Aside from the list, Leslie had another expectation from the man she would marry.

“I think most importantly for me, he had to be like my dad,” said Leslie, whose father died several years ago.

What Leslie didn’t know while she was in college was that “Mr. Right” wasn’t in her life yet and wouldn’t be for several years to come. So instead of tying the knot at 22, Leslie waited.

She wasn’t alone.

The median ages at first marriage have risen from 20 for females in 1960 to 25 in 1996, and 23 for males in 1960 to 27 the oldest in American history according to a study released June 6 by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

A Right Age To Marry?

While most current marriage trends those that indicate Americans have become less likely to marry and that fewer of those who do marry have unions they consider to be “very happy” show marriage to be a troubled institution, the increase in the median age for first-time brides and grooms appears to be a positive trend, according to the study.

Leslie believes it will definitely be a factor in the success of her marriage.

“I think we know what we are getting into because we have had the time to grow as individuals,” she said. “I think that will make the union better because we have had the time to discover what we want out of life.”

She is relieved that Bob, who is also 27, didn’t come into her life until she was ready.

“I was so young and didn’t know what I wanted out of life,” she said of the time immediately following her graduation from college. “I had five years out of college to go play and experience. Now I can settle down and look at this with happiness and not say ‘what if I had done this’ or done that.'" Warnings about marrying too young were plentiful when Mark and Trisha Scott of Jacksonville announced their wedding plans.

“People said, ‘Don’t you think you ought to enjoy life a little more?,’ ” explained Mark, who is 21. “I was like ‘I have enjoyed my life.’"

“We thought we were ready,” added 20-year-old Trisha.

“We know we were ready,” Mark continued.

It wasn’t like the two had just met. They both went through school together. Mark knew Trisha who was on the cheerleading squad at Southwest High by sight and their official meeting in carpentry class in 10th grade seemed like it was fate.

Mark took the course to learn about carpentry. On the first day of the class, the teacher said they needed to pair up. Mark and Trisha have essentially been a couple ever since, although there was one thing about that course that Mark didn’t learn until recently: Trisha’s reasons for taking the class were much different than his.

“I took it because of all the guys,” she said.

“Oh man, I never knew that,” he admitted.

The relationship turned out to be the only lasting thing the two gained from the class, according to Trisha.

“Neither of us really know how to build,” she said.

But young or not, the couple, who married May 6, plans to construct a successful life together. Before they married, they decided to spend nine months apart after graduation so they could date other people. Both it actually made them closer.

“We were both very jealous the whole time,” Trisha said.

Mark, who can’t seem to erase the smile from his face when he talks about his marriage, said he couldn’t imagine being away from his new wife.

“I’ve probably been asked ‘How’s married life?’ 2,000 times,” he said. “I tell them all the time it is the best decision I ever made.”

An Ageless Desier

The feeling that comes when someone thinks they are ready to make a lifetime commitment to another person doesn’t necessarily change with age or even experience, said Dorothy Pullicino Beese, who at 69 decided to remarry after being a widow for two years. Her first marriage lasted 48 years before her husband’s death in 1997.

“I don’t think knowing you’re ready is any different,” said Dorothy, who married Robert Beese last October.

But she said a second marriage is much different than the first one, especially when a couple is older.

“The challenges with a second marriage are merging two households, handling finances and blending children,” said Dorothy, who merged her five children, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren with Robert’s two children and three grandchildren.

“With grown children, you don’t have to deal with it day to day, but you have to deal with it,” she said.

As members of the National Fleet Reserve Organization, the couple met years ago, but it was only in the last few years that their relationship took on special meaning.

Since they got married, they have been commuting between Jacksonville her home and San Diego his home every six weeks. This summer, they will move to Florida to a house they bought together. The two are nonchalant about the arrangement and said if they don’t like Florida, they might resume commuting. In fact, although they are committed to making the marriage work, the two seem undemanding when it comes to the success of it.

“I personally don’t think it’s really a big thing marrying at our age,” said the 69-year-old Robert. “If we can’t make it work, we’ll just walk away.”

Dorothy agreed.

“I have no fears,” she said. “If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. We have a great deal of respect for each other. We’ve been there and have seen the problems and certainly hope to have none of our own. We’ve known each other for quite awhile.”

Together they have more than eight decades of marriage experiences between them, and they don’t take the lessons they learned lightly.

“In my first marriage, we didn’t know where we were headed,” said Robert, whose first wife died of cancer after 28 years together. He remarried a second time, but it didn’t work out. He was single for eight years before marrying Dorothy. “There was a lot of peanut butter and jelly in those days. Now, it’s steak and eggs,” he said.

The couple agreed that financial security has made their relationship a lot easier from the start in stark contrast to Dorothy’s first marriage at age 18.

“Older people have more money and less obligations,” she said. “Money is where a lot of the problems are. Younger couples never have enough money to raise their kids.”

“With us, there are no kids,” Robert added. “The house and furniture is all paid for. We can go to the grocery store, and if we want something more expensive or exotic, we can get it. We can do whatever we want.”

But learning how to live with someone getting used to their habits and accepting their flaws is something Dorothy said didn’t change the second time around.

“The adjustment is the same when you are 70 and 20,” she said. “You are still getting used to living with somebody else and getting used to their quirks.

“You are constantly working at accepting a person the way they are. I don’t work at changing him, but there are a couple of things I wish he’d change. But I’m sure he’d say the same things about me.”

That’s something Dorothy didn’t realize until well into her first marriage and in her new relationship, she’s taking that lesson to heart.

“I wanted my first husband to be more like I was,” she said. “He was more of a loner, and I was more outgoing. I wanted him to be more friendly and outgoing, but he never changed. I realized you can’t change a person. I love Bob the way he is and don’t expect him to change.”

Roselee Papandrea can be reached by e-mail at rpapandrea@jdnews.com or at 353-1171, Ext. 238.