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"  25 WEEKS OF MARRIAGE   Erika TarantalAge: 29Occupation: Reporter/Anchor for WNBC TV, 4 New York  Lucas NathanAge:  28Occupation: Real estate agent for Brown Harris Stevens Home Base: Manhattan How did you meet?   ERIKA:  Growing up, I was always aware that Lucas existed. His cousin Alicia is my oldest and best friend\u2014my first memory of Lucas was from a home video Alicia showed me of her cool older cousin snowboarding. Lucas and Alicia both ended up at Skidmore College. I remember visiting Alicia at school. She was having a holiday party, and Lucas cornered me in the kitchen and said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to kiss you tonight.&amp;quot; His confidence was attractive, but I was taken at the time.LUCAS: A few years later, I ran into Erika again, at a mutual friend&amp;#039;s housewarming party in Manhattan, where I ended up giving her a ride home on my bicycle, about 40 blocks.ERIKA:  Yup, that was the clincher for Lucas, that I hopped on his bike. What is your favorite part of your spouse&amp;#039;s body?    LUCAS: Her brain!ERIKA: His beautiful green eyes.  Something you wish you had known 25 weeks ago?  LUCAS: If I make money, it&amp;#039;s ours. If Erika makes money, some of it&amp;#039;s ours and the rest is hers!  Biggest accomplishment?    LUCAS:  Watching every single episode of The Wire together, which is impressive, considering our different work schedules.ERIKA: We really set high standards!  What is your partner&amp;#039;s most irritating quality?    ERIKA:  Asking me how things taste before I even eat them.LUCAS:  When she vacuums while I&amp;#039;m watching TV.  What celebrity could you cheat on your spouse with guilt free?    ERIKA:  We would both be allowed to cheat with [Portuguese soccer player] Cristiano Ronaldo!LUCAS:  Absolutely not true. Erika is the only celebrity that I&amp;#039;m allowed to sleep with.  Favorite small kindness your spouse shows you?    LUCAS:  She&amp;#039;s very quiet in the morning when she is getting ready for work.ERIKA: He&amp;#039;ll do little things, like send a picture or an e-mail to our family and friends when he&amp;#039;s proud of me. Would it bother you if your spouse flirted with your friends?    ERIKA: Lucas will flirt with just about anyone. He is flirty with my friends, so no.LUCAS:  And my friends are flirty with Erika, so no.  What has been the biggest challenge?    LUCAS:  You have to find that fine balance between what makes you happy and what&amp;#039;s best for the partnership. You learn how to deal with stressful situations, like when Erika&amp;#039;s grandfather passed away.ERIKA: When I first got the call, Lucas came right away. He just hung out with my grandmother. He didn&amp;#039;t have to say anything; he was just there. I think that&amp;#039;s what a husband and a friend does. You can&amp;#039;t help but look to the marriages you know. Lucas and I are close to our parents, who are both still happily married for more than 40 years.  Favorite memory from your wedding day?    ERIKA: What I remember most was when all my bridesmaids left the room, and I was all alone before the ceremony. My dad popped his head in the room, and the horns started playing &amp;quot;Sea of Love&amp;quot;\u2014and then I just remember Lucas&amp;#039; smile.LUCAS: She looked like an angel coming down the aisle.  Kids?   ERIKA: Lucas and I want to have children. But right now, we&amp;#039;re enjoying having the freedom to travel, and we both want to move forward in our careers.LUCAS:  At least for another 25 weeks.  25 YEARS OF MARRIAGE   Lauren KaplanAge: 46Occupation: Ceramics artist  Laurence KaplanAge: 52Occupation:  Executive Vice President of Gerber Finance Inc. Home Base: Westport, Connecticut  How did you meet?   LAUREN:  Laurence used to read the news on one of the really popular radio stations in South Africa. In the middle of the summer, the town had a big fair, and everybody used to sit and look into the station tower where he was working\u2014he had a rich voice, full of character. When I finished with my boyfriend at the time, Laurence&amp;#039;s mother, whom I knew from town, said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m gonna get Lacky to call you.&amp;quot;LAURENCE: My mother kept going on about how Lauren was this and that, and I thought, This is ridiculous! She&amp;#039;s 17 years old! [Laurence was 23] Then I heard that one of my brother&amp;#039;s friends was going to ask her out, and I called her immediately.  What initially attracted you?   LAURENCE:  A beautiful 17-year-old girl with a big mane of blondish brown hair. Oh, and she&amp;#039;s got the finest feet I&amp;#039;ve ever seen!LAUREN: He was charismatic, warm, and hysterical. A mensch\u2014just a good guy.  How did you know that he was the one?  LAUREN: You think to yourself, How would a 20-year-old know what&amp;#039;s right for herself in the future? You&amp;#039;ve just got to go with your gut. I always knew that Laurence was going to be successful. He was totally driven; I knew he&amp;#039;d provide.  What&amp;#039;s your secret to a successful marriage?    LAURENCE:  You can&amp;#039;t stifle each other.LAUREN: I have my passions, like ceramics, and he&amp;#039;s got his golf.LAURENCE:  You&amp;#039;ve got to keep it interesting in every way, because anything can become stale. You have to be unselfish. I think people today take marriage too lightly. If I ever cheated on Lauren, I could never face her.LAUREN: I&amp;#039;d pull a Lauren Bobbitt! The rabbi who married us said, &amp;quot;When you get married, it&amp;#039;s like lighting a candle. Sometimes the flame goes down, and when that flame goes down, you need to give it more oxygen.&amp;quot;  Most unusual gift for your husband?  LAUREN: In South Africa, you call beef jerky biltong. For Father&amp;#039;s Day one year, I actually constructed a biltong dehydration unit in a big closet. At some stages I had 80 pounds of meat hanging in the closet drying.  What is your partner&amp;#039;s most irritating quality?    LAURENCE: She is the worst backseat driver.LAUREN: If I can&amp;#039;t get hold of Laurence over the phone, I go mad. Like if I BlackBerry Messenger him, and I can see that he read it, that drives me crazy.  What celebrity could you cheat on your spouse with guilt free?   LAURENCE:  Well, Lauren&amp;#039;s got a list!LAUREN:  I haven&amp;#039;t got a list, but I think that someone like Sting would be unbelievable. Favorite small kindness that your spouse shows you?    LAURENCE:  Bringing me tea in the morning.LAUREN:  He always helps me clean up after dinner.  Would it bother you if your spouse flirted with your friends?   LAUREN: Laurence is an extremely jealous person, so it would bother him very much. I&amp;#039;m not as jealous. But yes, I suppose it would worry me. What has been the biggest challenge?    LAUREN:  I pushed Laurence to take a new job to join an international trading firm in Switzerland. So we packed up everything in South Africa, and he literally dropped me in Switzerland with three babies, while he was working and traveling. Our children&amp;#039;s teachers thought that I was a single parent because they never met Laurence.LAURENCE: I worked really hard for 12 years, and because of that, I missed everything\u2014the kids&amp;#039; birthdays, games, etc. I was never around. The reward for working so hard was that for eight years in the middle of my life, when most people were working night and day, I was chilled out and was a completely present father.  Do you have a TV in the bedroom?  LAURENCE: How else would we watch Dancing With the Stars?  Expectations for your marriage 25 years ago?    LAURENCE:  That this marriage would be a raging success. It was just going to be a fabulous ride, and it&amp;#039;s absolutely been that and more.LAUREN: For the last 26 years of my life, I wake up smiling and laughing, and I go to bed smiling and laughing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a11396/saying-i-do-25-weeks-25-years-498583/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>