Shakespeare.

Tennessee Williams.

Miller-Boyett.

Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Robinson-LaMotta

Morrissey. Like there's a better source of guidance out there, puh-leez.

gaspode

Parents.
Grandparents.
Couples at my church.
Best friend.

I tend to look for people who are happy with their relationships even if I think their relationship is not one that I would want. I figure learning how to be happy with what you have is a really huge part of staying in a relationship as opposed to moving through many of them. If that's what you're after, of course. Otherwise I think it's Charles and Ray Eames.

awwww..... ((((mike9322))))

Something along the lines of what jessamyn says. The people whose relationships I admire are all vastly disparate (as are their relationships) but they have certain aspects in common, primarily that you can see the love, *like*, and respect that they have for each other just beaming out from them. And this is after many decades, in some cases.

Cliff and Claire Huxtable.

No, seriously.

Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet :)

I think jessamyn is right on.

Like gaspode, I admire couples that treat one another with kindness, love, and respect, and are friends.

A certain amount of smoothness is desirable in my opinion. The ability to "get along" is important to me. Not to say I haven't had my moments of unnecessarily disrupting the smoothness.

on preview:

Cliff and Claire Huxtable.

Yes! They're friends. They're a team. They enjoy one another and still have that spark. They can laugh together and never undermine one other.

I like the idea of people complementing each other, and bringing out the best in each other.

Rosacea Loganberry Hayes.

Oops. wrong thread.

The entities residing in my gut and my pelvis.

For me it's like keeping an old car running and on the road. You need to prioritize, and choose what to fix, and what fixes to defray, and what to "live" with.

The upside (and I know that this sounds like a dreadful metaphor for a relationship)is that this "beater" gets you places, still.

Evidently my relationship role models are celibate monks. The bastards. I definitely need new role models.

My friends Faith and Winnifred, who celebrated their twentieth anniversary a while back. The secret, apparently, is shared in-jokes done in funny voices.

I'm my own model. I don't think you can ever look deeply enough into another couple's relationship to really pick apart what works and what doesn't, much less figure out how to apply what you may have thought you learned to your own relationship.

For me it's like keeping an old car running and on the road.

A friend of mine, happily remarried after a divorce and amicable with her ex-, told me that she looks back on that first marriage and wonders why they gave up. "It's as if our car ran out of gas, but instead of walking to the nearest station, we abandoned it on the side of the road and walked our separate ways."

I don't have a role model. I'm fumbling my way in the dark.

It's kinda scary out here in the dark. That's why The Fella always likes to hold my hand.

[This got long, you might wanna grab a beverage]

What eamondaly said, only for a different reason. The mister and I have the best thing going. We are amazingly compatible and it's disgustingly obvious how much we adore each other. We've never ever had what I would consider a fight (yelling, slamming doors, sulking). We disagree, we discuss and we come to an agreement (or agree to disagree).

My family has a horrible record when it comes to marriages/long-time relationships (married two, three, four times). For instance: my oldest brother and his wife have been together a long time, but they've separated twice. I know my brother isn't exactly happy, but he feels he has to continue the relationship no matter the cost to his personal happiness.

The people I've met through the mister aren't happy in their couple-hood. All they do is snipe and undermine each other; it's horrible how they, or at least one half of the couple, degrade each other. I'd have been long gone.

The one couple I can think of in a positive way is the mister's parents (they've both passed on). Father-in-law proposed to Mother-in-law when they were 20-ish or so and she said no. He waited through WWII (they both enlisted) and her first two husbands (one died in the war and the second one abandoned her, a bloody Yank of course) and she finally said yes. They had six boys and when the youngest was about ten she had an aneurysm. She wasn't expected to live, but did. She was in hospital for over a year before she came home. Her health never really recovered but he stuck by and did his best to support her and the boys while trying to earn a living as a surveyor. He worked and extra five years beyond retirement age to make sure he had enough money to keep her in the assisted living facility she needed as she aged and went through a a couple bouts of cancer and a series of strokes. She died a couple years before he did and I don't think he ever really recovered.

Since my parents were married until dad died in 1995, and my in-laws are still married, they serve as pretty good models. But like was said upstream, we also have benefited from having friends in good, stable relationships that we could look to as an example.

There is a fair amount of bickering/discussion/whatever between Mrs. Doohickie and me, but there is always a line where, once one of us crosses it, we realize it and totally cave into the other (even if we're not really caving in on the inside). When the words get too intense, we usually just get out of each other's way until one of use is ready to give the other a hug.

Cliff and Claire Huxtable.

Today's best TV marriage, imo, is that of Marge and Homer Simpson. They are both themselves but they are both devoted to each other, in spite of their areas of disagreement. The Simpsons is the most stable TV family right now.

No, seriously.