EXTRACT FOR
The Shared Nightmare
(Craig M. Sampson)

After 20 years of marriage, Richard and Sarah felt like they had seen it all. They had experienced the same normal ups and downs of any long-term relationship, they supposed, but the last 5 years or so had been some of the best that either of them could recall. After getting married while still both college students, to the utter and vehement protests of both families, they settled into their lives together tuning out all the naysayers and critics. Following graduation, Richard took a position at a local firm doing graphic art design while Sarah began as a new teacher in the brand-new charter school that had gone up recently to alleviate some of the overcrowding of the single school available. Neither was pulling in a huge salary at the time but they both knew you had to start somewhere and for the time being, they had each other, which was all they needed.

Looking back now they both shook their heads in amazement at how they had lived in that first little apartment with little to no heat in the winter and sweltering humidity in the summer. But as fresh college graduates often do, they made do and somehow it had just seemed normal. Both families finally let up on how critical and harsh they had been on them as time went on...especially as their economic fortunes took off. Richard and Sarah had suspected all along that it was not them getting married at such a young age that had set off the 5-alarm protests from both camps, but that on some level both families were dreading the expected request to take them in when they discovered that they could not make ends meet on their own.

But early on they had promised each other that unless it was a matter of life or death that they would not resort to that fallback option. Sacrifices had been made and even when they themselves were on the brink of folding, Richard and Sarah plowed ahead doing whatever it took to survive. However, when Richard got a big promotion after just one year at his company all the pressure melted away life got easier both for them as well as their in-laws. But that is not to say that their marriage was all grins and giggles. When the bumps in the road came along, Richard and Sarah attributed enduring the rough times to how they had banded together since their college days when no one else believed in them.