The writer Arthur Brooks recently penned a column about a dinner party he and his wife attended with several other long-married couples. After some requisite social niceties, the hostess posed a question that sparked an evening of fascinating discussion: have you ever had a major crisis in your marriage?

Were you to ask that question of my wife and me, our answer would be, “Are you kidding? Take your pick!”

The first crisis arrived forty-four years ago, on the night of our wedding. To set the stage, the connubial couple were decked out in some of the finest duds they would ever wear. There was lace and ruffles and tasteful accents. My bride’s wedding dress was also very elegant.

(I would like to point out that I had nothing to do with the selection of my rented tux. I was an innocent bystander regarding our wedding plans.)

After our wedding dance concluded, we returned to our dairy farm to change clothes and grab some luggage. My Holstein cows had decided that our wedding night would be an ideal time to break out of their pen and galivant around our farmstead.

So, I chased cows in the dark while dressed in the aforementioned lace and frills. Nobody would have blamed my bride if she, upon seeing the moo poo spatters on my rented shoes, had immediately noped out of there.

Jump forward a few years. We were selling some cattle, including our Holstein bull. I climbed into a corral with the 2,200-pound mountain of raging testosterone and muscle, thinking that I could gently goad the bull into the stock trailer.

The bull quickly became annoyed with this pesky little human and tossed me into the air like a ragdoll. By some miracle I landed on the top board of the corral and managed to hang on. My wife, who was extremely pregnant with our second son, was screaming at the bull from outside the corral. The bull ignored her, just as I had ignored her warning about getting into a small enclosure with that massive and ill-tempered bovine.

Bump ahead a couple more years and we find ourselves mired in the Mid-80s Farm Crisis. For what seemed like forever, the prospect of losing everything hung over our heads like a financial sword of Damocles. The constant stress would have caused a lesser woman to bolt. But beneath my wife’s gentle exterior there beats the heart of an Amazon.

Flash forwards a few more years to that hot July day when I climbed into a manure pit on our family dairy farm and didn’t come back out.

I had been rendered unconscious by hydrogen sulfide gas and my parents had found me floating face-up in the manure. Our local first responders rescued me from the pit, and I was ambulanced to a local hospital where the ER doctor told my wife that my chances of survival were zero.

My wife, despite being informed that at age 29 she was about to become a widow with two young sons, insisted that I be helicoptered to a larger hospital. I later experienced another major crisis at the larger hospital and my wife was again told that the end was at hand. She insisted that the doctors consult with Mayo Clinic. They did, and the crisis was averted.

More recently, I underwent successful treatment for tonsil cancer. My wife was at my side every step of the way, holding my hand, insisting that I get some nutrition into me despite a total lack of appetite. My team of doctors are extremely pleased with the outcome, especially the fact that I lost less weight than expected.

I watched in awe and wonder as my wife gave birth to our two sons. You might say that she was the sole parent in our family when we were raising the boys. Like many guys, I have a Peter Pan complex in that I’ve refused to grow up.

In a photo that was taken on our wedding day, my wife and I are standing in a doorway, all decked out in our wedding finery. The doorway is symbolic, of course. On the other side is our future: the for richer and for poorer, the in sickness and in health.

What catches my eye is the look on my wife’s face. It is one of pure, unadulterated love. I know now, even as I knew then, that she is much more than I could have ever asked for and is far better than I deserve.

Happy anniversary to the love of my life! Cheers to more years!

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.