As I write this article, a song of Frank Sinatra is ringing in my head. It goes like this: "love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage....."
Which bring us to the question - "do you you really need to be in love with the person you plan to marry?"
I can hear you giggling, probably saying - "of course you have to.... duh?" But, if you look at the statistics you will begin to see that it does not quite add up. One of three marriages end up in divorce. So, where did love go?
Which brings up another question - "Is love simply a disposable ticket to marriage which could be chucked anytime the thrill is gone?" Aha! Now you're beginning to think. If indeed love is the raison d'etre of marriage why do people get separated?
Why is it that when distressed couples are asked by the marriage counselor if they still love each other, many say no?
You know what I think? I think that some people get married for a lot of reasons and love for many of them may not even be a factor. It's like, if you think that your marriage will survive simply because you love each other, then may be you are just a hopeless romantic. I think you need more than love for your marriage to survive.
Patience is indeed a virtue - especially in marriage.
Assuming that love is a factor, just how important a factor is it? Perhaps, I'm just confused about my understanding of what love is. All I know is that if you want your marriage to survive you got to have more than just love to see you through. And, you need to set your head straight about all the reasons you have for getting married before that big event.
Thinking back to the time when my wife and I were undergoing pre-marriage counseling I remembered the priest telling us that love is far from our common understanding of what it is. Love, he said, is the ability to give till it hurts, and to give still more while you are hurting.
If that advise ever answered the question "does marriage counseling really work?" I'd say - "who knows?" Back then, I thought it was crazy. How could the priest make something - apparently - exciting, and beautiful sound so painful?
But now after 35 years of marriage, I realized the priest was right. In many ways, down the road, marriage could become a torture. And the idea of love changes drastically, from the heart-stopping, and exciting notion of wanting to be together forever and ever to the ever-nagging question of "what went wrong?"
And your view of marriage changes too. From exciting to frightening: the exciting anticipation of what's gonna happen next to the frightening idea of getting up at 3 a.m. for diaper changes - and you still have to get up at 5 a.m. to get to work on time.
What the cynics say is true. The magic ends after three years. If you are lucky, you may go up to five.
So, what did I do to survive 37 years of marriage? Simple. Well, not really. Aside from standing up to my rights not only as a husband, but more importantly as a person, I also learned to recognize that my wife has her rights. Over and above expressing my feelings when I need to, I have learned to respect hers.
At this point, as you can see, the question "does marriage counseling really work?" is becoming quite irrelevant. We did go through pre-marriage counseling you know.
What happened was that my wife and I went through our "marital growing pains" on our own without any help from any one. We did not have any counseling. And, when I said "pains" I mean those which really hurt. But, we survived because we made the decision to make our relationship work.
I've learned a lot all these 37 years. I've learned to do the balancing act between meeting my own needs and satisfying the needs of my wife. More importantly, I have learned to play between mixed emotions of affection and anger, between tenderness and frustration, between compassion and being mean. And a host of contrasting feelings too difficult to define.
I've learned to value companionship, too. Above all, I've learned to value the person I share my life with and I've learned to value our relationship, no matter how difficult it could be at certain times.
To propose an analogy, I'd say that marriage is like a machinery that needs to be maintained in order to function smoothly. Sometimes the machinery balks, and you need to coax some energy into it. You need to keep on attending to it, checking up on it, to make sure it is working. Once you stop working on your marriage it will stop working for you.
What about love - you ask? Depends on your idea of love. You just might be a hopeless romantic ( I repeat myself), in which case you are in for a real disappointment. It's time you redefine your idea of love. Get real. Don't get snagged on the idea of the electrifying vibrations, and sensations you want to feel when your partner is around. They disappear. If you could survive 37 years of married life what do you need them for? The magic of marriage is in the thrill of making it work, and the feeling that comes with surviving its ugliest moments.
Oh, yeah - if giving till it hurts is love then maybe, there is love in marriage after all.
If you ask me - am I crazy for sticking it out? No I'm not. I'm simply not a wimp who changes his mind when the going gets rough. I've made a decision 37 years ago. I intended to stick to it to prove to people that I can do it. If you are faint-hearted, better not get married.
