Marriage
That is a very big word that brings to mind many images like white dresses, fantastic cakes, beautiful flowers, dancing, and in 60% of the cases in America,
D I V O R C E.
Now I happen to be one of those strange few whose parents are still married after 40 plus years. THEIR parents were married until death parted them. I had no first hand knowledge of what divorce was or what it really meant on a personal level for most my life. I do remember begging my Dad one day in a moment of pure bravery born of desperation, why why WHY didn't he divorce mother and take us away from her mood swings and emotional abuse? His answer was simple, "Because I love her and I don't want to leave her." So, to me, based on the examples in my life and the vows taken, marriage was:
a sacred bond forged by love that defied explanation.
Fast forward to 1999 and I meet Nevi's Dad. We had something of a world wind romance and ended up getting married in my parent's front parlor on Valentine's Day 2000. Very romantic. The only glitch was that it turned out that Nevi's Dad is a narcissistic borderline sociopath. Basically he is super damaged but I fully believed in all the vows we took, "in sickness and in health" being one of them and meant his mental illness was not reason enough to end our marriage. It simply meant I would have to work harder at making our family work. And boy howdy did I work hard! Like most abusive relationships, he didn't start out horrible - he started out wonderful and charming and telling me every good thing every woman wants to hear from the man who says he loves her. Turns out that scientific research shows being "in love" is just a chemical state that happens to our bodies when we first meet someone. Cool, huh? However, it doesn't last and when that glossy shiny lovey dovey stuff is gone THEN you get a real solid look at the person you have vowed to spend the rest of your life with.
Number One Lesson Learned - Marriage is not a competition. We get married so we can have a partner who stands WITH us in shouldering the enormous responsibilities adulthood brings.
By the end of our marriage - 10 years later - he was threatening me at knife-point and forcing me to do things I didn't want to do. That is what abuse can do ... it happens slowly. And it took THAT for me to finally end our marriage and divorce him. It was horrible because marriage is sacred and I knew I had not entered into it lightly. Once the vows are made we had better like the person we are bonding ourselves to because marriage is harder work than it needs to be otherwise.
So when I see in the "news" that famous people are divorcing or hear about people I know suffering divorce, it makes me sad especially if there are kids involved. It makes me sad because divorce sucks. There is nothing cool or fun about shouldering 100% of the responsibilities for three kids by myself. If he hadn't turned out to be such an abusive cheating competitive non-partner we would still be married to this day and I wouldn't be doing this by myself. I feel that most of society takes marriage for granted. "Oh, I'm not happy anymore ... I'll just get a divorce." Really? Because for anyone to think that marriage is going to suddenly make you happy 24/7 when you weren't happy before you have a giant disappointment waiting for you. My ultimate goal was to be mostly happy ~ content ~ for 23/6. Considering I suffer from serious chronic depression I think it is an optimistic but completely doable goal - with help.
What really sorta pisses me off is how easily people go from "married" to "single." Guess what, until the divorce is final, you are "married but separated." Does this temporary status give married people the right to move on to another relationship before their divorce is final? No, not really. I don't think so. Besides, divorce is second only to death of a spouse, as being the MOST stressful experience a person can have in their lifetime. We are a world suffering from emotional trauma induced by our careless ways of romanticizing marriage and then bailing when the real thing doesn't live up to our totally unrealistic expectations for "happily ever after."
If you are happily married to your best friend I cheer and salute you. Finding the RIGHT partner is certainly a battle. STAYING married once the commitment is made doesn't seem to be high on society's list anymore. All this noise about same sex marriage ruining the American Family!?! Hogwash - DIVORCE is ruining the American Family. We need to focus more on making our commitments WORK and less time chasing that "in love" feeling as the answer to our "happily ever after." Just like doing the Tango, it takes TWO to make a marriage - ANY Marriage - work. I believe in marriage with all my heart and I believe most of us do better with a solid partner at our side - but like I said, it is hard work and therefore, I don't recommend it.
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