Product Description

Jaded by his parents' divorce and the countless marriages unraveling around him, Mathew Boggs was a young man who'd lost all belief in lifelong love. Roped into chauffeuring his grandma and dying grandfather on weekly adventures, he realized that, sixty-three years later, they were still madly in love."Now, that's the marriage I want!" he said to himself.

Fired up to find more success stories, Mat talked his best friend, Jason Miller, a clueless commitmentphobe, into joining him on a cross-country search for America's greatest marriages, which they called "Project Everlasting." The two bumbling bachelors jumped in an RV and embarked on a 12,000-mile adventure, encompassing the beaches of Los Angeles, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the bayous of Louisiana, and the mountains of Montana, to discover what it takes to make love last -- not from Ph.D.s or therapists but from more than 200 real couples who had walked the walk to more than forty years of marriage.

In Project Everlasting, they share their wisdom. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the pressing quest ions the bachelors asked the couples, such as:

• "How do you know you've found The One?"
• "What's missing from today's marriages?"
• "How do you keep the romance alive?"
• "What's the most important ingredient for a solid marriage?"

The couples opened their hearts and homes to Mat and Jason to reveal intimate and authentic portraits of fulfilling marriage. Couples like the Byrds, in New Orleans, who lost nearly everything they owned in the devastation of Katrina -- except their love and commitment to each other. Or ninety-somethings Ruth and Eddie Elcott in Los Angeles, who spent the first two years of their marriage separated by World War II and the later years of their marriage reading their wartime love letters to each other at bedtime.

Along the way, Mat and Jason began to understand why their own relationships hadn't worked out quite as planned. They also realized that what they were learning from their wise new friends could change everything for them and -- through Project Everlasting -- show their generation and generations to come how to build a marriage to last.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #337551 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Review
"If marriage is your path, then this book is magic. From the lips of those who have made it work comes the power to make it work for you."-- Marianne Williamson

"America stands or falls based on the strength of our marriages. Mat and Jason are dedicated to discovering and showing the world's greatest marriages. I know that their book will model and show how to master the dream of everlasting love. Everyone loves a great love story, and they are about to present it."-- Mark Victor Hansen

About the Author
Mathew Boggs and Jason Miller have been best friends since childhood, and in 2003 they joined forces for Project Everlasting. Mat, a Scorpio and hopeless romantic, enjoys long walks on the beach. Jason, a Pisces, doesn't. When they aren't off doing speaking engagements, they're burning home-cooked meals in their Portland, Oregon, bachelor pad or on dates with Grandma Dorothy. To learn more about Project Everlasting or to contact the authors, please visit ProjectEverlasting.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

NOW THAT'S THE MARRIAGE I WANT!

-- by Mat

My favorite movie growing up was Walt Disney's animated Robin Hood -- I watched it about a zillion times. Why? Because only a hero as cunning and courageous and charming as Robin Hood could get a girl like Maid Marian.

Oh, Maid Marian. (I understand that she's a cartoon fox, but she's a smokin' cartoon fox.) She had a sweet, contagious laugh that made me melt. She played badminton (extra points for being athletic). My heart literally pounded when Robin Hood and Maid Marian took a midnight stroll behind a waterfall.

Robin may have had to win his archery competition against the sheriff to get a kiss, but love conquers all, right? At age ten, that's what I believed. Never for a moment did I doubt the existence of everlasting love or my ability to obtain it. Happily ever after -- isn't that what everyone wants?

Cut to several years later. I was studying for my ninth-grade biology test when my mom's voice broke the silence. Family meet- ing, she announced. This meant one of two things: Someone had either done something really right or really wrong. My family is full of overachievers, so I was more accustomed to celebrations than bad news. The second I stepped into the living room, however, I knew we wouldn't be celebrating anytime soon.

My sister sat on one end of our couch, my parents on the other. Mom was crying. She wiped away her tears and looked at me with eyes that said, No matter what, you'll be okay. This only worried me more. Dad, the consummate clown and entertainer, was expressionless. My parents did not touch.

My mom said, "Your dad and I have something to tell you -- we're getting a divorce."

My stomach went into zero gravity and my sister burst into tears. Several of my friends had gone through this, but their parents were completely different from mine. Their parents screamed and threw plates at one another. Divorce was a godsend to those friends, not a tragedy. My parents' split came with no warning as far as I was concerned. They'd been married twentyseven years and seemed like the happiest couple in the world. "I love you," they'd tell each other, and I believed them.

My mother's words obliterated everything I believed about love. Both my parents had betrayed me.

Lying in bed that night, my thoughts swirled so violently I became dizzy. Memories of my parents kissing and hugging, laughing, telling me over and over again, "We are soul mates, Mat," seemed like a mirage. How could this happen? How could they have lied to me?

Like most children of divorce, I was soon forced to make a decision: live out of a suitcase or pick a parent. I chose the suitcase. Every other weekend brought the bitter reminder that my home had been ripped in half. I felt turned inside out. Nothing felt familiar. The future loomed like a thick fog. What will happen to Christmas? Birthdays? Thanksgiving?

The divorce consumed all of our lives. I hated my mom for leaving my dad and I let her know it. I hated my dad for not being able to make my mom happy and I let him know it. I wanted my parents to love each other again. I wanted my family back, but it was hopeless. Apparently a commitment to forever lasted only until you changed your mind.

Thirteen years later, I was finishing my master's degree in education. My girlfriend and I were going through a nasty breakup. This relationship had lasted almost a year, a record for me.

My mom called from Portland to let me know my grandfather had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Grandpa Jack dying? It didn't seem possible. I'd loved that warm, generous man for as long as I could remember and somehow thought he'd be around forever.

"You'll be home soon," my mom said. "You need to spend some time with your grandparents, maybe arrange a date each week." Hang out with the grandparents? Of course I would. It's just that my schedule...I've got a lot on my plate...Don't get me wrong. When I was little, I idolized Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Jack. They lived in a world of Mickey Mouse pancakes, a garden with candy hidden in it, and endless supplies of homemade cookies. They told funny stories about the olden days and thought everything I said was clever and important. They treated me like a little prince, and there was no place better than Gram and Gramps's house to find a warm hug.

My grandparents had always seemed old to me, but in a good, twinkly kind of way. In recent years, however, I'd found myself restlessly tapping my foot as I waited for them to put on their coats. They moved slowly, and I was in a perpetual hurry. I found it hard to sit through a two-hour lunch while Grandpa chewed each mouthful forty-four times and talked about the childhood friend who just died, especially when I had a ten-page term paper due.

Grandpa and Grandma were quaint and sweet and I loved them, but somewhere along the way my adoration had turned to tolerance. They listened politely but blankly when I talked about buying a laptop. And I could hardly share my girlfriend troubles with Gram and Gramps. They were the product of a bygone era. It had been, what, nearly sixty years since they had fallen in love? They probably didn't even remember what it felt like. In their day, people married for life because they didn't have a choice. Husbands worked, wives stayed home, and divorce was taboo. Even if a wife wanted out, how could she support herself? Now that couples can split up, they do -- in droves. For my grandparents' generation, it seemed to me that marriage had become a habit that just took too much effort to break. But despite the fact that we lived on two different planets, they were still my grandparents.

"Of course, I'll spend time with them," I assured my mom. "Looking forward to it."

Guilt and obligation can sap the joy out of any activity, but I did come up with what sounded like a decent plan. Each Thursday morning I'd roll up to their house for the day's excursion. Grandma would spend the prior week combing the newspaper for that week's latest and greatest lunch spot. With newspaper clippings in hand, we'd hit the road, Grandma riding shotgun and Gramps sitting in the back, with the calm of someone who has made his peace with life. We would drive two or three hours in search of special treats in out-of-the-way spots, like Mike's pumpkin milk shakes, Dooger's clam chowder, and Serendipity's rich chocolate brownie cake.

To my great surprise, I had a blast on these visits. The long drives provided ample opportunity to learn things I never knew about my grandparents. Conversations that would have normally been cut off by typical interruptions -- a phone call, an appointment, the football game -- continued on into uncharted territory. I heard the story of their first date, how Grandma's dress popped open while they were dancing and how my brave grandfather nearly lost his fingers to hopping heels as he scurried around the dance floor on hands and knees, collecting all of the buttons. Gramps told me how nervous he felt meeting Grandma's parents for the first time -- seeing their cat licking its back and hoping for a conversation starter, he commented, "I wish I could do that." But when her parents looked down, the cat was licking its crotch!

One crisp fall day, we went antiquing, Gram's favorite pastime. Dusty old furnishings and knickknacks hold zero interest for me, and it was our ninth trinket shop stop that day. I wearily pulled Gramps's Buick over and helped them out of the car. My grandparents went ahead as I locked up. I watched their slow, uneven shuffle toward the store. This was a standard sight by then, but something in that day, something in that moment, gave me pause. I noticed how their frail fingers were intertwined.

"Funny," I thought, "all these years, and they're still holding hands."

Suddenly, I stood there almost paralyzed, my eyes fixated on their hands. I know this sounds strange but the energy between them became visible. Like a movie effect, everything around them dissolved. I could see the energy of their love swirling and encircling them. It took me a second, but I got it. I remembered the longing for my true love, my Maid Marian, and my belief that our love would last forever. I hadn't had that feeling in years. I had long since abandoned the idea of everlasting love as a stupid fairy tale cartoon. Yet here it was in the flesh.

My chest began to tingle. In that moment, the couple before me became more than just my grandparents. I saw them as partners who had journeyed through a lifetime of challenge and struggle. Now at the end of their journey together, they were still crazy about each other. All these years...how had I not seen it? Grandpa beaming at Grandma, telling everyone in earshot, "Just look at her. Isn't she beautiful?" Grandma still laughing at jokes I'd heard Grandpa tell countless times. How his face lit up whenever she walked into a room! Through tear-filled eyes, I stared at the blurry image before me. How simple they made it seem! But to me it represented what I wanted most in the world. More than anything, I wanted to find the love they were living. My grandparents had been married sixty-three years, but it was not convention or habit that kept them together. Jack and Dorothy Manin were two people very much in love.

"Now, that's the marriage I want," I whispered to myself.

My grandfather passed away just a few months after that. Later, when she could talk about it, my grandma said it felt as if half of her had died with him.

After his death, I felt an overwhelming need to preserve the precious something that the two of them had shared. Hundreds of questions ran through my head: Were my grandparents an anomaly, the lone couple that just happened to remain happily married through the decades? Or could it be that other couples married forty, fifty, or sixty years were still in love, too? If so, how did they create and maintain that powerful connection? Way back when, how did they know they'd found "the One"? Didn't they worry about falling out of love one day? Or becoming bored? Was their longevity the result of dumb luck? Or cou...

Customer Reviews

Useful For Discussion And Self Examination
While I agree on that message the book conveys would be considered 'common sense', I am continuously amazed at how little common sense I encounter in the world at large. There are too many couples who rush into marriage without considering that the commitment they are entertaining is larger than themselves.

I think the book serves as a tool for use in self examination and reflection, hopefully leading to honest conversations. It's a shame for someone to grow up only after vows are exchanged and families are hurt. My parents were married for 55 years until death parted them. I hope to do at least as well.

Consider giving this to engaged couples or using it along with marriage preparation.

A new favorite!
I've been recommending "Project Everlasting" to all of my friends, whether single, in a serious relationship, or married. For a single twenty-something like me, the stories of the couples in this book are ones of hope and possibility, demonstrating everything that marriage can and should be when two people are genuinely committed. I think what Mat Boggs and Jason Miller have done in collecting these stories is to highlight all the best things of which human beings are capable. The lessons they've captured are invaluable, whether a person is called to marriage or not; to be able to love in the way that these couples have learned to - with a selfless determination - is the greatest thing that we can strive for in this life.

The book is very well written, and Mat and Jason have an open, honest, and engaging way of taking you right along with them on their journey. This is a book that draws enormous amounts of wisdom from a series of personal journeys - those of the couples in marriage, and those of these two bachelors, discovering exactly what it is about marriage that is so worth waiting for, and so worth the effort that it clearly takes!

You have to buy this book!
This is one of the most heart warming books I have ever read. It is well written and made me smile most of the time I was reading it. If you like to hear uplifting stories that have happy endings, then this is your book.