Names: Jaclyn and David Kalcher
Years together: 25
Occupations: HR consultant and general manager
Their friends jokingly refer to Jaclyn and David Kalcher as the couple who forgot to break up. “Everyone’s had the six months relationship or they’d moved on to another boyfriend,” says Jaclyn. “David and I were always there and always together.”
The Sydney couple were 17 and 19 when they met at a local bar. They both remember the Wild Turkey in Chatswood as a grungy sort of place with shavings on the floor. He was working and she’d just started university. Initially he tried to chat up her friend, who instead pointed him in Jaclyn’s direction telling him he might have better luck with her.
For Jaclyn it was all a bit of a laugh: “It was back in the days of pash and dash. You’ve got girlfriends at the bar and you’d be chatting to someone on the dance floor but you’d be pashing and dashing and keen to get back to your friends.”
They exchanged numbers and began dating. Jaclyn still wasn’t taking it too seriously but David was keen. They both remember a night when she suggested a break and he was not having it. “I liked him, but I was not interested in anything long term [and] I remember him saying: ‘No. We’re a good thing; this is too good.’ So David did recognise that early on.”
For David, their connection was effortless and undeniable. The young couple would spend hours together, talking on the phone or hanging out. He was quickly absorbed into her family life, with her father happy to have a young man to help out. “I remember he’d always say: ‘Well if David’s going to come up, just tell him to come up a few hours beforehand,’ ” says Jaclyn. “Then David would be outside in the backyard doing hours of landscaping. [It got] to the point we’d all be sitting down for lunch and my boyfriend is moving rubble and digging.”
Despite all his hard work, her dad was still strict and forbade them from spending time alone in her bedroom together. Still David persisted, determined to win him over: “It was like a challenge and it just made it more worthwhile.”
David’s family also adored Jaclyn, although his mother was protective of her son. As a mother of two young boys, this is something Jaclyn understands now: “There is that saying you lose your sons to their partners and to their partners’ families. I probably wasn’t as sensitive to that with my mother-in-law, and because David was just so willing to come along and do what I wanted to do and be where I wanted to be.”
After dating for about seven years they got engaged and then married five months later. Jaclyn was 24 and for her it wasn’t an obvious decision. But it was an easy one. “For me it wasn’t a decision about wanting to get married, it was a decision that I knew that we were going to be together forever,” she says. “Our lives have always felt like that – they have had a nice rhythm and that things have naturally happened when they have meant to happen.”
David saw it as the next logical step: “I absolutely adore Jaclyn. I loved her with all my heart [and] I wanted to start a family so [I was] a bit of a traditionalist in that sense.”
This is one of the couple’s natural differences: she’s spontaneous, he’s a planner. But over the years they’ve learned to adapt. “[David likes to] have set those future goals, particularly when it comes to finances or career goals. I now recognise that in David, and I do adopt some of those behaviour patterns myself. And likewise, David with some more spontaneity and living in the moment.”
After they’d renovated a house together, Jaclyn fell pregnant with twin boys. This changed things for the couple. “Having the boys probably were some of the toughest times,” says Jaclyn. She was 28 and felt very isolated. “It’s such a shift going from being a 20-something corporate high-flying girl to being at home with twin babies.
“We were the first of our group to get married,” she says. “We were certainly the first of our group of friends to have children. I didn’t know anyone else with one baby, let alone twin babies.”
When she went back to work after a year of family leave things came to a head: “That was when I really suffered with depression and anxiety. If I think of the hardest time of our lives, that would’ve been it. I don’t remember there being a lot of financial pressure to go back to work, but really feeling a societal pressure.”
Family life was demanding, work was demanding and it became too much: “I was back for a year before I literally landed in a heap and just said: ‘This is not what I signed up for. I hate myself, I hate my life.’ ”
David was very worried: “It was very confronting … I remember being in bed and Jacs just told me how she was really feeling, and I just couldn’t believe what was being said.”
Once he realised, he was determined to fix it: “It [had] all landed on Jacs to be the one to do drop-offs and pick-ups and then cook. It just came to me when she said that. I went right, that was scary, and it became a focus. What can we do to make sure Jacs is OK?”
Jaclyn says it was difficult for her to admit she wasn’t coping, particularly to her husband who she felt had always seen her as confident and capable. She also felt embarrassed and ashamed that she’d quit her job.
“I didn’t go back to work for four years, a very long time. I wasn’t unwell for four years, but I was unwell for a significant period of time, but then the shame, embarrassment and fear of what had happened, how I had walked out of a job and fallen in a heap.”
When the time came, she admits she was scared about going back. “I was really fearful of getting myself back into a situation where things were going to be untenable, where I was going to find myself back into a depressive state.”
Luckily that didn’t happen, and they both say they learned from the situation. Now they make sure to check in with each other, reserving Friday nights as their fun night together. “Jacs and I have a few drinks and have a lovely dinner together and we always just have made sure that we keep a watch on each other. And the kids benefit because they’ve got two loving parents who are still together and are still there.”
Although they rarely have big arguments, they are quick to acknowledge and apologise if there are missteps. “Having children in our house makes me really conscious,” says Jaclyn. “I want to demonstrate how adults can communicate through turbulence or through difficulty and demonstrating some of those relationship behaviours is really important as part of parenting.
“At the end of the day, I’m really proud of my marriage and when you are proud of something, you actually want to take care of it. It is a living and breathing thing. It changes and morphs, but it is very special.”
Their commitment to each other has never faltered. “I couldn’t see my life without her, so to me that’s my commitment,” says David. “I absolutely adore her. She’s my world and without her life would really suck, to be honest. So I’ll do everything and anything to make sure that, that stays.”
Jaclyn agrees, saying commitment has never been difficult because at the heart of it all they have a strong friendship.
They both laughingly demur when asked for the secret to their enduring relationship. “The funny thing is, no one could ever ask us for relationship advice, and I think that’s because whilst we do have a good relationship, we’ve only ever been with each other,” Jaclyn says.
But she does have one thought: “If I was to give anyone relationship advice, it would be choose a partner that you actually like. David and I spend a lot of time together and that one relationship can impact your whole lives.” She turns to her husband: “If I still like you, and by like you, I mean if I still want to spend time with you, and I think you’re a great guy, I think everything else still would be OK. But I like you, I really like you.”
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