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Sandra and Don Duckworth will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary together in June--after spending most of the past nine years apart. He's the director and CEO of the Bishop Museum, Hawaii's popular cultural and natural-history institution. She's a political consultant based in Alexandria, Va.
For the first 36 years of marriage, the Duckworths lived together. In the early days, Sandra often accompanied Don, then an entomologist for the Smithsonian, as he traveled the world collecting insects--at least six new moths were named after her. And when he got the Bishop Museum job in 1984, just after Sandra had been re-elected as Fairfax County supervisor, she and their three children moved with him to Honolulu. Both say that was the most difficult time of their marriage.
Thus Don was supportive when Sandra decided to move back to Virginia seven years later, after the children finished high school. "I was always traveling anyway, and we were used to separations," he says.
They e-mail or phone each other every day and take turns visiting in person five or six times a year. "We store up our need for hugs," says Don. Says Sandra: "There have been many phases in our lives. What matters to us is that we have always managed to work through problems." Both say they are too busy--and too eager to be together--to become mired in petty spats.
Sandra says she will eventually retire and will probably settle in Hawaii with Don then. That would suit Don, who mulls an eventual return to hands-on insect study. Who knows? There may still be a nameless moth somewhere that will one day join the list of those bearing Sandra's name. --Reported by Anne Moffett/Alexandria
STAND UNITED IN ADVERSITY
Phyllis Raffall and Irving Tepper hoped their 1967 marriage would bring an end to the pain each had suffered: Phyllis' first husband had died at age 36 of a heart attack, and Irving's first wife had left him for another man. It didn't turn out quite that way.
Though they seemed to be a match made in heaven, their wedding was a prelude to two years of hell. Irving's younger son cut the honeymoon short by running away from his mother's home and moving in with them; Irving's father died after a long illness; Irving was repeatedly hospitalized for mysterious blackouts. The couple lost one pregnancy to miscarriage; a second pregnancy ended in stillbirth the same week Phyllis' mother died of esophageal cancer; Phyllis was forced to commit her father to a mental hospital.
The next few years were no picnic either. Irving's son did poorly in school and hung out with delinquents. Irving worked three jobs to pay for his son's therapy sessions, and Phyllis quit her teaching job so she could be home with her stepson.
The Teppers swallowed their pain. "Phyllis and I never fought about what we were doing," says Irving. The Teppers do discuss disagreements, however--but never when they're angry. "I'm uncomfortable with confrontations and mean things being said. You can't take them back," says Phyllis.