After 37 years married, Nancy and Matthew finally unpack what keeps their relationship thriving. Spoiler: It’s not just loyalty. It’s laughter, communication, respect, shared goals, and a strict $500 spending rule. Expect raw real talk, stories about dog walks in Manhattan, unplanned computer purchases, and still finding ways to appreciate each other’s different styles. Honest, hilarious, and surprisingly meaningful.

Takeaways:

• A successful marriage necessitates mutual respect, which includes refraining from derogatory language during disagreements.
• Shared goals and values form the foundation of a lasting relationship, guiding both partners through challenges.
• Humor plays a vital role in maintaining a joyful atmosphere, enabling couples to navigate conflicts with grace.
• Open communication is paramount; both partners must articulate their thoughts and feelings to foster understanding and growth.
• Establishing financial boundaries, such as a spending limit, can help prevent disputes and ensure joint decision-making.
• Making time for shared activities strengthens the bond, while also allowing space for individual interests and pursuits.

Hi, I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Gregor.

We have this new podcast called.

We should probably Edit this, but we won't.

We're recording now.

Are you ready?

We're on.

Oh, we're on.

Yeah, we're on.

Hello.

Hi.

So today's topic.

Glad you got your throat cleared out.

So today's topic here, interestingly enough, I was asked not that long ago from somebody who wanted to know, okay, what is the secret to a long lasting marriage?

Okay.

And, and we're an example of that.

We are 30, 37 years to some people.

You know, I'm sure there are lots of other people that have more years than what we put in, but we happen to be at it.

You know what's funny is this.

It reminded me of a time years ago when we were first married and we lived in Manhattan and we lived in this, you know, 12 story building and we, we were, we were the different couple in the building.

You mean we were the minority.

We were the minority of the building.

That, number one, we were a heterosexual couple.

We were married and we had a small child at this, at that time was Benjamin, who, who was born.

And so there was one other couple.

There was one other couple in which.

We happened to meet.

Meet by walking our dogs.

But the, the reason I bring that up is that it seems like in this particular setting we were sitting at a table where either people were divorced, single.

Maybe you're jumping back to the present.

Yeah.

When you, when you, when you.

Is it hard for you to follow?

Sometimes.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is.

I mean, you were talking about something in the past when.

No, I had a B.

Trying to correlate it to where we are and why I felt it was unique in as much as that.

Once again, we're in a situation where we're the oddities.

And I find that interesting that we're the oddities.

That.

So are we the modern day odd couple?

I don't think we're an odd couple.

I just think that the.

So the question is, what helps our marriage work?

Or what keeps our marriage.

What's the secret to our success in being married as long as we've been married?

So what's it, what's the, what's the secret?

What's the secret to this?

What's your secret?

What do you think the secret is.

For making a marriage last and for, for doing it?

Well, number one is I think you have to have fun, you have to laugh.

You know, you, I mean, the reason why we're doing this show in some ways.

But you.

You need to.

You can't take everything so seriously.

And that's a hard thing to.

To really do, actually.

And especially in the beginning of a marriage, I think there's.

There's definitely.

You definitely go through ups and downs in it.

And.

But if you can.

If you can bring light to the situation and if you can not take it so seriously, I think that that goes a long way with what it is.

And if you can just bring humor into the situation, into whatever it is, as well into every day, if you can just smile, you know, at each other, you know, and appreciate them for who they are, because they're not going to be who you wished they were always.

You know, you got married because something was there.

There was some chemistry with it.

And you can't go into a marriage thinking that you're going to change this person.

It's not going to happen.

I think you have to have fundamentally, in the very beginning, there has to.

Be common goals and common grounds and values, same values.

If you don't have that, it's going to be really, really hard.

You have to have those things in common.

How you get there, that.

That's.

That's where a fun stuff lies.

Right?

But is the idea of.

We had the same goals in mind.

We knew what we wanted in this relationship.

We knew what we wanted to do with this relationship.

And so we are coming at it from two different ideas and perspectives and backgrounds.

Raised differently.

We were raised very differently.

However, we didn't always know that at the very beginning either.

No, you don't.

Well, you kind of have some clue, but maybe not 100%, but there are things that you still have to have in common.

And I think in the beginning stages, we had ideas of what we were looking for in this marriage.

We wanted a family.

We wanted to have children.

We wanted to be able to grow in doing that.

And boy, there were challenges in even just doing that, that somehow we still held strong and held steadfast in saying, though, this is what wanaza was one of our major ideas.

We wanted to have a family.

And so the trials and tribulations of what that meant, we still pushed forward.

We still kept going forward.

We still kept pushing no matter what obstacles were presented to us in that, because we had that as one of our common goals.

Right.

I think also you have to have respect.

And the one thing that we did with each other when it comes to respect is we don't curse at each other.

Right.

We don't call each other negative names.

Yeah.

And to me, that's being respectful of understanding that you don't need to call somebody a really bad name to get your point across.

Right.

That didn't mean those things didn't fly out from time to time, you know.

But they were never directed.

No, they might have been directed over.

Situation itself, but not necessarily.

Right.

Because you got frustrated.

Because you got frustrated.

But I didn't take it out on you, you know, and I didn't, I didn't blame you for something or get mad at you because of that particular.

I might have, I might have walked away and in my breath.

Yeah.

But it wasn't something where I stood in front of you and said, you ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

That didn't happen in, in our marriage and think that that has to do with respect.

We respected each other enough to know that certain things, you know, you're not going to come back from easily.

And so you have to be really mindful of what those things are because they can affect your marriage.

If you have one person who's constantly putting you down or constantly being negative or constantly, you know, cursing you, that's going to be very, very difficult to overcome.

And that's not something easily done, at least for us.

Yeah.

Right.

Because this, this is, this is what keeps our marriage going.

Everybody has a different thing.

I mean, I look at our older son and, and his wife, and we would sit back and say, yeah, that would not go well with us.

Right, right.

I mean, it might work for them.

It might work for them.

It might just be what, what they're used to and what they're doing, and it may not be geared towards them.

Right.

Some of those conversations may not be geared towards each other, but just the.

Way they're just, just the common, the common language.

Right.

And I, and I think by doing that, I think our children also understand there are certain levels that you will never.

You can't cross.

So you can have a discussion with me and you could be upset with something I said, but cursing at me is not going to be allowed.

Right.

Would not be tolerated.

And because there's a, like I said, there's a negative connotation to that, and that's really something hard to work back from.

So that's one of the things we never did.

So there was a mutual respect.

And I think because you had some fundamental things that you were looking, looking at, you worked at all the things that were opposite of each other.

The way we were brought up and how we were raised and what our values were, you know, were Very, very different, you know, Very different.

Yes, but, but, but the overall values are, are similar are our values that we bring to the table.

Maybe our family values were slightly different.

Maybe our commitments and how we looked at our extended families were very different.

You know, my growing up in Hispanic family, there's, there's a very strong bond with your elders.

There's a high level of respect for those elders, and you just did things because that's how to do it.

It wasn't, it wasn't, wasn't a debate.

Like they didn't ask you if you wanted to participate in a, in a Thanksgiving.

It more like, no, no, what time are you coming?

So family was.

Growing up was a lot different and expectations with those family members was a lot different.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think another thing that's, that's really important in a marriage is just being able to listen and try to put yourself in that other person's shoes.

You know, you have different ways of thinking and you have different ways that you bring things together.

And there's always two points of view to something.

It's your point of view and the other person's point of view and how they see things.

And if you can just take that time to try to understand how they are viewing something, it'll make things much better.

When you're trying to have a discussion or when you're, you're coming to a conclusion with something because it's, it's, it can't be your way or, or the highway.

Yeah.

All the time now.

I mean, each one of us are going to have our way from time to time throughout a.

Really.

Throughout the time that we were together.

Correct.

Because it's something we want to do.

And if you're strong enough that you want to do that one thing, you're going to want to do it no matter what.

You're going to push it.

You're going to push it through.

The other guy may not like it.

But I mean, that's where you have the give and take too at times.

There is, there is a give and take as well, but, but if you can really try to listen to that person and have that intention of listening, not just hearing what they're saying.

There's a big difference between hearing what they're saying and actually listening to what they're saying.

It'll go, it'll go a long way.

And, and the journey is not always rosy.

The journey's not, you know, it's got its ups and downs.

You got your peaks and your valleys.

You know, and there's times that you are down low that you wonder if you're gonna get out of it, you know, at times, whether that's a particular situation or a particular time period that you're in.

So it's so if.

But if that bond is strong and if that love is there, you know, you're gonna work through those times and.

You'Ll figure it out.

I think it's important that you keep.

Like you said, you're keeping an open mind to figure it out that you're not.

You don't resolve yourself to just saying, you know what, it's just not gonna work.

And, you know, I think to some extent both parties have to be willing to listen and both parties sometimes have to be willing to.

Someone's going to.

Someone is going to concede to some extent on certain aspects or you're going.

To come to a mutual agreement, or.

You'Re going to come to a mutual agreement.

You both agree.

I mean, I think the most.

The time, a lot of.

A lot of the time we agree on the same thing, you know, we.

Do, but I think for us, the real big difference is, is how we say it.

I'm more of direct to the point.

Get it out.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And I. I'm not good with indecis.

Decisiveness and nerd and nurturing certain Taking.

Too long to come up to the point.

That's enough.

I've heard enough.

Yeah.

But, yeah, those are the kind of.

I'm not good at.

I'm just.

That's just never been my temperament.

And so I, I'm.

I'm more like, let's go.

Let's.

This is what we're gonna do.

Let's just do it and let's just see where it goes.

Where sometimes.

But sometimes I' with that.

With.

If I didn't have to make the decision correct or decide what it is.

And, And I'll just go with it.

And you'll just go with it.

Yes.

And.

And that's.

And vice versa.

There will be things that I will sit back and say, no, no, you take the lead.

I'm just going to follow you where.

Where you want.

Like one of the things we talked about this weekend is, is.

Is making connections with people and communicating with people and building our social network, building friendships.

Building friendships with people.

And what did I say to you?

I said, this is something you do better at.

So you go and you find some people that, you know, we want to interact with and I'll come along because I'm.

I'm not good at that.

He's much more approachable.

I'm not necessarily approachable, but that's.

But that's okay.

But then.

Then when we do get into the conversation, you're the one that.

You're the life.

You're the life of the story.

You're the life of the party.

I'll.

I'll take the lead.

I'll.

I'll take the lead on that, but I'm not necessarily that front runner.

So you.

That's.

But that's.

But those are things.

Those are things you.

You find out throughout time.

Yes.

Of being together.

And the thing is, you can't fight those things.

No, I think that's.

That's where.

If you can.

If you can embrace.

If you can embrace what you're good at and what that is, then.

Then it just makes it that much better, and you can let go of some of those other things.

And you're okay with that.

You have to be okay with it.

You have to be okay.

If you're always constantly fighting it, then it's.

You're just.

You're just gonna be miserable.

You're just gonna get frustrated, and there's.

There's no real reason for that.

But, you know, I mean, I'm sure there were.

There's been people in our lives that have been on their second, you know, marriages, and, you know, there's.

There's still problems fundamentally with.

With those marriages, and they're trying to figure things out.

And I think it's just important to really just figure out what it is that you need to do to make those things work.

There has to be something more in common.

You have to have lots of things in common.

Things you like doing together.

Things you like doing together.

But I think also having a very strong sense of what you like to do, and you're okay being by yourself, doing it.

Like, you love to go fishing.

You love to be on that boat.

You love going out there and.

And being out on the ocean.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna go out on the ocean unless you got a really big boat.

Yeah, I mean, I do.

I wish that was different.

Sure, I do.

I wouldn't mind you coming out with me and spending time with me out there, but then I have to come to the realization that you're not going to.

I mean, the few times that you've been out there, I think you've.

You've.

It was okay.

I had a good time.

But if.

If you say to me, hey, is this something you want to do on the weekend, I'll say no, right?

Or if you'll say to me like, hey, it's still daylight.

We can go out and, and go out on the boat.

I'm like, yeah, no, I don't have that.

That desire, if you will, like you do.

But that's okay, because you know what?

That's.

That's something you enjoy, and I want you to enjoy and I want you to have a good time when, when you are out there and doing it.

Just like, Just like you want to go get your nails done or your facial.

Yes, nails and facial.

It's not something you would do, but I did get you to do.

When we go away to do couples massages.

Yeah, See, that last one really worked me out over the knots that I had.

So it was, it was good trying that out as a couple, going out and doing that.

And I even.

I think that I even got some facials going on for you too.

I think that.

I think that brings back to the point that you also, as a.

As a partner, need to try certain things with.

When.

When they're suggested to try them.

You know, you can't be so rigid.

So rigid about it.

You know, like, getting me to go do the.

Do the massage wasn't something I'm gonna just go up and do.

Right.

But.

But I enjoyed that with you.

And there's been other times that I've asked you to do things and you weren't real sure about it, but.

But you did it.

We did it.

And you.

And some.

Some things you enjoyed.

Some, like I said, some things not.

I just think that the objective here is knowing to be open, not being so rigid as to, you know, it has to be your way all the time, because it.

I know that if.

If that approach is taken with me and like, with anybody, I think not just with me, but with anybody.

If you're given ultimatums, they're not really a good place to be.

Ultimatums is not what we should be striving for.

It shouldn't be that way.

It's got to be a lot of communication and a lot of talking things through and, and realizing that there are, you know, there's always going to be differences in, in how we approach it, but it's important to listen to what those differences are.

But I think initially, when we first got married, we.

We had to see what is it that we wanted, what did we want out of this marriage.

And you're going to make a lot of mistakes in the beginning, you know, and you need to communicate.

I Think communication is probably ranks up there as in the top five of what you need to do.

And you know, I learned that really early on when I went and bought a computer.

Without talking to her about it.

No, you talked and I said no.

But I think I already did it.

And I, but I said no.

And I said no.

I think you need, really need to, we need to think this over because it was a big purchase back then.

Yeah.

I mean it was a, it was a crappy old PC, but.

But at the time it wasn't.

And at the time you thought it was something you really needed.

Yes.

Or I did anyways.

Yes.

And then I went out and bought it anyhow.

And, and then never forget that.

And never forget that moment.

What came out of that, that experience between the two of us.

Communication.

No, there was something else that came out of that.

I must have turned it off.

Tell me.

We set limits.

Yeah.

We're not allowed to spend X number of dollars without the other one's consent.

Right.

Right.

And so we both had to agree to that.

Now, coming up with the dollar amount, I think it's at 500.

I think it's always been at 5.

It might have, it might have always been after that 500.

But that's, that was the point.

We both agreed that, hey, you know what, we can make a, we can make a decision on spending money as long as it's under that criteria.

If it's over that criteria, it's a conversation.

Right.

That we have to have together.

And do we really?

Yeah.

Then, then you can have.

See, a lot of times.

Let me rephrase that.

A lot of times we, we may think that we need that or something.

And then that there's the.

When you have that conversation with the other one, you, you have better reasoning on whether or not that's necessary or practical or really needed.

You know, that goes back to another thing that's important in a relationship is, is that, is it.

You may have one way of thinking about something or you're not sure about something, that other person's going to bring a different perspective to it.

And I think having that other perspective in a relationship is really important.

Yeah.

You know, because, because when you're trying to move forward in life, you don't always see everything you should correct.

And, and you don't have all the answers.

You don't have all the answers.

You don't see things the way they, they maybe are or you see them in your point of view.

Right.

And that other person, when you can learn to listen to them and hear what they're saying, too.

It can really either steer you from going down a direction you shouldn't go, or it can just give you just a whole other perspective of something.

Right.

And.

And you.

And.

And I think there is something to be learned.

If you went ahead and did it anyway, like when you went ahead and bought the computer anyway, was there some sense of anger and frustration?

Yes.

Yeah.

I really felt bad after that, that's for sure.

I couldn't take it back.

It's like I couldn't.

I couldn't.

I couldn't return it.

But it was more or less.

I think there's.

There's always going to be those turning points in any relationship, and it's how you want to move forward.

Right.

I mean, that was a mistake that was made.

It had other consequences, financial consequences.

And so we had to kind of sit back and I could have sat back and said, that's it.

It's a deal breaker.

But it's understanding that there was going to be more to it and understanding that there was a bigger problem.

You would have let that computer destroy our.

Our marriage.

I've seen less destroy marriages for.

Okay, okay.

So it's, It's.

It was kind of figuring that out, and it was no different than when you had that.

What was that car that you had when we first got the convertible that you had?

The Chevy is a Chevy Malibu.

Whatever it was.

We.

You were living in Florida.

We decided to move up to New York.

A car in New York is just not going to work.

And this was like.

Like the kind of car that you need a garage to park it in, not parking on the street type.

Now ask me if I had.

Wish I had that car right now.

Yes.

I mean, at the time, I agree that it was.

It was impractical.

It was that car.

And.

And so you had to sell it.

And you, you sold it because we.

It wasn't going to be.

It wasn't going to work for us.

And we had.

We made certain decisions at that time.

I agreed that that was the right decision.

That was the right decision.

Was it the right decision?

I don't know, but it was the right decision at the time.

Yeah, but I mean, those are the kind of things.

We were first getting married where we were going to live.

We were going to live in Florida.

And we did look at trying to live in Florida.

Right.

We did look to see how that would actually look for us.

Yeah.

I can't remember why we didn't do it other than work jobs, I was employed in New York.

You had something going on in Florida.

I think the opportunities I felt were.

Were more greater in New York than they were.

Yeah.

So it was, you know, doing that.

And so there were lots of decisions that we made along the way that we looked at what's the best for the two of us, what's going to work out better for both of us.

Not necessarily what's going to work out better for one, but what's going to work out better for the.

For both of us.

So like moving to New York, for instance, that was a decision that, you know, we kind of made that was going to work out for the both of us, you know, where we were going to live, whether it was out in the boroughs or in Manhattan.

That was a decision we had to make.

That was for the both of us that we had to figure out.

And I think first we lived in Queens and then we moved to Manhattan right when we were going to start a family.

That was also, you know, and then.

When, when, when was the time to leave the city?

Yeah, when was it time to leave the city?

So there were lots of things that again, but the main objective was, is where we were going in our life and what is it that we wanted to do together.

And raising a family was one of the primary focuses.

And that's probably one of the more trying things any couple can do is starting a family together.

Because, boy, that brings so many trials and tribulations.

Well, then it's.

Then it's no longer just about you two of you.

Yeah.

You know, you've now have the other.

Other human that you decided to bring in into then.

Then that brings a whole nother mix into it too, is how are you going to raise them and what are the values there and what's important to you and what's important.

And that's why it's so important in the beginning that you guys have the right mindset.

Right.

And values too.

So it was good that we.

We waited a couple of years once we got married, before we started down the road of having children, because that gave us an opportunity to kind of.

Know we'll get to know each other and to do a little.

Do a little bit of traveling or doing a few things.

Well, we went to.

We went to California.

I remember that.

Yeah.

And we went to the Bahamas.

That was a really.

Yeah, that wasn't a great trip.

That was a different kind of.

California was more.

California was really nice.

And it.

More about showing you where I came from right.

Originally and seen some relatives of mine.

Right.

But.

Right.

So I mean, so what would you say is the top, top five things in a marriage?

You know, obviously there's love.

We didn't really talk about that.

Yes.

But I mean there was love, there's admiration, there's respect.

I think there's communication.

And our goals have to be the same.

You have to be in alignment.

We have to be in aligned.

Yeah.

We got to know what that is.

You know that.

That's why probably with you is more frustrating because you'll say to me, what do you dream of?

What do you want?

And you.

What I usually say, well, what is it that you're dreaming of?

And then you'll tell me.

I says, that's good.

I mean, I mean that's me crazy.

Yeah.

Because I meant I do, I want, I want, I want to know what your vision is.

But things.

But that's just the whole point of it.

There is nothing that you're presenting that I could say to you.

No, that's not what I'm looking for.

So is that because we're in alignment?

I think so.

I think we're in alignment.

I don't think we have our goals and our aspirations are so far fetched.

I don't.

Right.

I think fundamentally there are things we want.

Do we want to travel?

Yes.

Do we want to go to different places?

Yes.

Do we want to have some more financial independence?

Yes.

Do we both have things we want to do once we retire?

Yes.

But it's not really too much, too different.

No.

No.

So I guess my top five would be love, communication, respect, humor and laughter.

Yeah.

I think is.

I think is really important.

It is important.

And, and just friendship.

Yep.

Being friends with that person too is just so critical.

So.

Yeah.

Yep.

You gotta, you gotta be a friend.

A good friend.

Mm.

Probably the best friend you'll ever gonna have is that one person.

Because like a good friend, they know just about everything there is to know about you.

Right.

Because that's what a good friend is.

Right.

Someone who knows everything about you and still sticks with you despite that.

So it's having a really good friend and wanting to do things together, but also in the same token, knowing that it's okay if you do things separately.

You don't always have to be together.

It does not have to be a situation where you can't move forward because that person doesn't want to move forward.

But.

But I still enjoy doing things with you more than I do on my own sometimes.

You don't like going to the mall.

You hate shoe shopping, so buying clothes for you is like pulling teeth.

So there's.

So you see, there are things.

Yeah, there's definitely things that I don't want to do.

You're right about that.

And that maybe you really want to do so.

Well, I don't mind doing it.

Like, this is a purpose and there's a reason behind it.

So I'm okay with doing that.

Whereas you're like, you know, you're the same principle as our younger.

As our younger son would was when he was little.

And I'd say, okay, we're going to go get shoes for school.

And he would go into one store, try on the shoes, and say, okay, I'm done.

And I would say, no, no, let's continue looking, because we might find a better deal.

And the boy would be like, I'm okay with the first.

Yep, that's you.

I'm sure it is.

That's you.

I'll admit it.

Where the first one comes from me.

He'll go shopping.

He'll do all of that.

But not you.

Of course not.

No.

No.

All right, well, we should probably edit.

This, but we won't.

Until next time.

Bye.

By.