To Marriage

It has become abundantly clear in our country (and maybe the world at large) that there is something wrong with how we perceive, value, evaluate, judge and either support, oppose or tussle with marriage. When the failure rate of marriages is at 50% (or the success rate at half if you prefer to follow the optimist's bent), we have to ask ourselves what is going on.

Surely, we could blame the sexual revolution. What we see in the media and even in our own neighborhoods is a sexiness factor that might lead people to stray. As if clothes themselves do not have enough ability to make an already attractive person look sexy, it doesn't help that how much we wear, reveal, expose and look for has increased to levels that teeter between absurd and pleasurable. I am no prude. I enjoy the fascination of a beautiful woman as much as the next guy, and I feel equally intimidated by the stud who can jog through the neighborhood without a shirt and without breaking a sweat. But the failure of so many marriages cannot be explained that simply.

Marriage as an institution might be the problem. Who wants to be stranded for their entire lives with one person on Fidelity Island? One hopes that marriage goes beyond such a notion - that friends can live together as lovers, that soulmates can share financial responsibility, that growing old together can be cherished as opposed to feared. Granted, some do feel a legitimate pressure when all they hear for their entire life is how one should get married, how one should find a spouse, how one should start a family. The word should implies pressure itself! How can one be expected to live as others believe? There is more to the force that drives the failure or success of marriage than the mere rules of society, though pressure does play a part.

What about commitment itself? That is often the fear that keeps people (arguably, mostly men) from taking the plunge, tying the knot and walking the line in the first place. Whether you are a family man, a player, a playboy or a cruiser; whether you are a mom-in-training, a boy toy, a devoted wife or a run-around-Sue, you have to know for yourself if long-term commitment is right for you. The rule is simple - if you can't stand the commitment, don't buy into the merger.

There are some who have said that divorce is too easy, that marriages are convenient-based agreements that can be dissolved as quickly as they are impulsively brought to form. True, for certain. When one can get a divorce from the same page of the newspaper where you find pizza coupons, we have passed a point on the moral compass of society. When we convince ourselves that the end to a marriage is an option, and therefore something worth taking the risk to get into, I fear we are lost, or have lost already. In all fairness, this is reality for but a select few and most people truly do want to be happy.

However, marriage was never meant to include an out-clause! It is comforting at best to think that those who reach the point of divorce have done so at a crossroads they never imagined, that they reached a moment they never saw coming. Is it naivety? Perhaps. Do fairy tales instill a blissful ignorance to personal shortcomings? Maybe. Or, is it the basic fact that we separate marriage from other things that we plan for? We plan a move, why not a marriage? We plan the wedding, but do we plan for the days when love is trickling away and frustration building up? We plan for retirement, but do we plan time for the one we were meant to be with?

Our lives pull us this way and that and take us here and there. As such, it is possible that marriages fail when couples forget to discuss/develop/draft a plan, a long-term plan.

Sure, the wedding is exciting! But what do you do afterwards? The famous "honeymoon is over cliche" can be dropped into text here for analysis and review, but I hope we have at least learned that life and love must go beyond sex and the beach, sex on the beach or annoying sand lodged in...never mind!

Wow, kids! What a great addition. All the fuss, the cutesies, the bonding through the late nights together. These are the best years. But then the kids gain independence, they keep you busy and away from each other, they pull you apart, they take your money and your recliner and your favorite shirt. (Who used that 1995 AFC Championship shirt to wash the damn dog anyway!?!) Kids can be a stress on any marriage - go wisely into that decision, friends! One must want the joy and accept the obligation; if you want the tax write-off, you'd better have the responsibility to stick through the times when headaches surpass passion and when the cutesies turn green with the sickies.

A bigger house! This will keep us happy. Hello, debt, repainting, a new roof, annoying neighbors, a longer commute, a longer driveway to shovel, more junk to fill storage...Man, I wish we had stayed in that starter house, they say. By then it is too late. The mortgage is fixed, the house is a mess and you start thinking you should be somewhere else.

Therein lies the trap! In a convenient world of individual accomplishment, we think of ourselves first, we forget the team concept. Buck up, kids! Marriage is a lengthy ride with amazing results, if you stick to a plan. Can you alter the plan as life goes its merry way? Of course you can. Just be sure you make those adjustments together. Like a good carpenter who would call the electrician before making a change to the floorplan, a good spouse sets the cards on the table so that both gamblers know the hand they are playing.

The events go on, the life continues, the excuses mount. Without a long-term plan, you can't see the marriage past the wedding.

I am no psychologist or marriage expert - I am simply a full-time teacher, a want-to-be-writer, a 100% dad and a committed husband. I don't know a lot. I have, however, figured this tiny reality to be true -- in the instant society in which we live, in the world of pressures both real and imagined, we have failed to see marriage as a long-term investment. Not an investment in funds and foreclosures, stocks and certificates, but an investment in time and growth that will yield a better end product.

There will be ups and downs, the long-term marry-er (to coin a terrible phrase) must recognize that those ups will require great pull because it is easier to push instead of pull, but those downs will require hard work because luck only plays a small part.

Will having a long-term plan solve the world issue of marriages failing at a fifty-percent clip? No. If half the world combined a heart decision with an it-takes-guts decision, maybe fewer domestic wars would be waged, less families would be separated and less hearts would be broken. For the record, today is the fourteenth anniversary for myself and my wife. A long time? Sort of, but it is always relative. Long term? You bet ya.


AN AFTERTHOUGHT (June 24, 2010):

I had to add this because I cannot believe I forgot to mention this in my commentary on marriage.

Let us not forget one truth: it takes 2 to make a marriage succeed, and it takes 2 to make a marriage fail.

Please be aware of this when choosing sides.