I am Sudanese and my wife is Egyptian. We met in 1964, over a dead body. We didn’t commit murder together if that’s what you are thinking.

We were in medical school, she was my partner. I remember how nervous I was about meddling with a real corpse, it was an old man and he just lay there cold.

Then in came my partner, she was really young and good looking. It just made everything easy we talked throughout, I forgot I was working on a corpse till the class ended.

We’ve been together since then. I think the key to making it work for this long is the conscious decision to stay married. No matter what happens, how angry or upset we get separation is never one of the options.

She doesn’t upset me as much anymore. After all these years, i think  I’ve become immune or maybe she has just stopped annoying me.

I still upset her though, recently she started complaining that I’m going through some sort of “menopause” she says I complain about things I ordinarily would not complain about. I don’t think I do that.

Even though she complains I know she loves me a lot, she always prays that we die together or she dies first. She says she can’t picture her life without me, we’ve been together for so long she doesn’t even remember what it was like before me.

I have thought about death too, I’m not bothered about who dies first.