The Secret To A 60 Year Marriage

PRINCE GEORGE- It’s not every day you meet a couple that’s been married for 40, 50, or even 60 years. But a local couple is celebrating their diamond anniversary and sharing the story of how they met and the secret to a long lasting relationship. Joyce and Charlie Burkitt met when Joyce moved to Reid Lake to teach in September. He says he told all the other eligible bachelors at the time to back off, as he had his eye on Joyce. In March, he proposed and they got married at the Salvation Army church on December 20th, 1958. Joyce invited her entire class so they would remember her new last name when she returned to school after the Christmas break. They had their first child 11 months later and went on to have two more. They now have six grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren and they’ve lived in the same house for more than 50 years. They say the secret to a long marriage is compromise. “I thought the family that does anything together will stay together, so I learned to hunt and fish and he learned how to sit at the ice skating rink and watch his kids and wife figure skate, you got involved in each other’s lives,” said Joyce. “The Bible says you two will become one when you get married but to me, that didn’t happen the day we got married, the longer we live the more it takes two of us to be one, if I forget something he finishes it for me, if he forgets something I finish it, it’s handy to have two of you.”