Patrick Swayze's Marriage Teaches Us

Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi © Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images for CDG

Ever since Patrick Swayze revealed he was battling cancer, the world's attention has been on the relationship and marriage he shared with his wife Lisa Niemi. This was no Hollywood couple. There was no scandal. There were no affairs. Swayze met Niemi in his mom's dance studio in 1970 when he was just 19 years old. Everyone from Swayze's co-stars to Barbara Walters has noted the strong bond Swayze and Niemi shared.

Now that Swayze has passed away, after losing his battle with cancer, his new book, The Time of My Life (Atria, September 2009), which was released Tuesday, gives readers insight into how he felt about his wife and his marriage. According to the reviews, the actor reveals that his wife lived in an apartment about 20 minutes from their home for an entire year earlier this decade because she could no longer tolerate his abuse of alcohol. Although they reunited in 2004, he writes, according to media reports, that it took about three years to really get back in sync with one another. A few short months later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Their marriage suffered through Swayze's bout with alcoholism, a miscarriage on Valentine's Day 1990, which ended their hope for having children, and his plight with cancer. Yet, it survived and others even noted its strength. Newlyweds can learn a whole lot about what it really means to be married from a relationship like theirs. "A relationship survives because of keeping the friendship alive and learning how to fall in love over and over again and never taking the other person for granted and seeing things in a new light with new eyes," Swayze said in 2007 as reported recently by Popeater. "We're big believers in, arguments are okay as long as it's not about your ego, but it's about a mutual goal -- trying to create something special."

I'd like to think that everyday in my marriage we're creating something special. There are days when we do good and make progress in that goal and there are days when we don't. Even for a couple as meant to be together as Swayze and Niemi that seemed to be the case. Amen.