You have your whole life to spend with someone. Your whole life. And people feel that if you're not married by 25 or 26 or 29 you're missing out on something. If you're still single by then, then maybe you should just pick your most likely soul mate.
I know that sounds ridiculously bitter and jaded, but really. Most everyone I've seen that's married starts getting tired of each other at around the 5th year. And if not, definitely by the 10th. And if not, then their minds start to wonder and someone cheats, or someone thinks about cheating or they have a baby because they think that's going to solve all their problems -- when the truth is they won't be able to solve them. Because, most likely, they just picked the wrong person to spend the rest of their life with.
There are a few couples I know -- two actually -- that I really believe are going to make it. Yes, two, out of the million weddings I've been to. Other than that, well, I guess everyone else just made a hasty decision.
I wonder what's made us, as a society, that way. So quick to make decisions of that magnitude. When our parents' parents were married, that was it. There was no, "Well, if it doesn't work out we'll just get divorced." You fell madly, deeply in love with someone. You got married. And you were in it for the long haul. If you had differences down the road, you learned to love each other despite them. Despite all the troubles of the world that beat you down -- bad economies, Vietnam, four children who wouldn't stop crying, money troubles. All of it. You persevered.
Who wouldn't want that? That kind of love you know won't go away. The kind of love you don't want to go away. I guess maybe a lot of people just give up on it -- the idea that there's someone perfect out there for them. I guess maybe I'm one of the few people who still believes in it. Yes, I still believe in it. Even after watching more than a few friends in their 20s go through their first divorces.
Maybe some people miss that one person. Or they screw it up somehow. Maybe some people decide against it because they're one of those who stray from true happiness.
But it's there. For everyone. It's got to be.
There's an Adam to every Eve. The trick is just avoiding all the serpents along the way.
1 comment:
I too have noticed many of my fellow lemmings blindly marching toward the cliffs of divorce. Being so enamored with each other, they cannot fully grasp the intense commitment that the are subjecting themselves to.
My personal opinion is that our current generation puts too much empahsis on love in marriage. Marriage by definition is a socioreligious union that was traditionally used to join two families for economic or societal benefit. In the past it served a purpose such as cementing political relationships (such as marriages between princes and princesses of rival kingdoms) and ensuring offspring in a situation where a trusted (and cheap) workforce was needed (such as working on the family farm). Many of these relationships were arraged by parents and love was not a factor whatsoever. Though it is arguable that many couples did love or learn to love each other, this was considered to be a side effect.
In our society where individualism is not only emphasized, but possible, it has become an outdated concept. Popular media perpetuates the idea that marrige is the inevitable step to take with someone you love. If you truly love someone everything will perfectly fine. However, a marriage cannot be sustained by love alone. All loves may not die but they certainly will wane occasionally. Many married couples are ignorant of this. They build a union on love alone. When the love becomes insufficient by itself to carry the marriage, nothing is left to rely on and the result is divorce.
This is why I believe that marriage is a course not to be taken lightly (or at all). Being in my mid-twentys and in a almost five-year relationship, I am constantly asked when my girlfriend and I are going to tie the knot. The answer is no time soon, if ever. Both she and myself are in very transitional periods in our lives (as are ALL people our age. Sorry, but its true. You're not really a grown-up yet.) and it would be foolish to commit to such a serious and (supposedly) permanent obligation.
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