'Til Death Do Us Part?

Are some of your relationships one, never-ending argument? Are you just "making the best of it?" Hmmm.... Here are a few things to think about.

Mexico City plans on instituting 2 yr. marriage licenses because most marriages dissolve within 2 yrs. After 2 yrs., the marriage ends amicably, you renew or you apply for a longer license.

Last week, an Iowa couple, married 72 years, passed away within an hour of one another. Their son said that they fought, they didn't always like each other, however they loved one another, stayed together and didn't want to be apart.

I have a close friend considering divorce. She feels she deserves happiness and doesn't want to end up trapped in an unfulfilling marriage like older generations did.

I'm currently working with a male client who recently gotten divorced. He enjoys his freedom however misses companionship. I have another male friend who looks forward to Halloween because he has freedom after another short term relationship and doesn't really want a girlfriend but misses the sex.

What's going on? I thought back to my own wedding vows (we just hit 10 years and have been together 19) and reflected on what we said. Through better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health, long as we both shall live. This is a promise before God. Etc. Most everyone says something similar and I asked myself, "when did all of that stop being important in our society? How did we confuse the purpose of marriage with lifelong happiness and marital bliss? When did we start believing our spouse or partner needed to fit a narrow ideal of love?

I'm not an advocate of marriage, or divorce for that matter. Research and on-the-street surveys will tell you though that most marriages stay together through choice, not because they're great relationships. For those couples, the benefits of staying outweigh the drawbacks of leaving including guilt, less income, religious beliefs and fear of being alone.

For me, however, the benefits of marriage go much deeper than only having someone to go to the movies with or as an additional tax break. I believe marriage, by design challenges us so we grow and learn more about being a human being. It challenges us to make peace with and love ourselves, resulting in peace and love for others. We vow to stick together through the disagreements, the drinking, the affairs, the lack of affection, the role switching, the different beliefs, the pettiness, the manipulation, the different needs... We agree that even when it gets bad, we'll keep showing up, in spirit if not in physical reality, wanting to keep an open mind, wanting to see a different point of view and recognizing and making peace with our own deeper beliefs- ultimately the source of our happiness or unhappiness.

What about when someone feels they've understood, supported, cared and they've only gotten used and abused? When I say understanding, I don't mean rolling over and playing dead. Instead, I mean understanding that we all have the same emotions and basic motivations and then deciding how we'd like to handle our different methods of expressing them. Everyone gets angry, it's no big deal. And, unless you clearly tell someone to stop their behavior through your words or actions, most of us continue to do them because it's very hard to tap into another person's experience when we are having our own. Even when we tell someone to stop, change takes time. To one degree or another, everyone feels uncomfortable when they hurt the ones they love, and, to feel better, will defend themselves, argue, bring out guilt etc until they distance themselves. If you're compassionate and patient with the natural process of conflict and change, you'll see miraculous healings.

I agree that sometimes we need to start over. We made very poor spousal choices and our partner doesn't really want to create a fulfilling relationship.  I'm certainly not telling anyone the right or wrong choice for them. I am saying though, that marriage, by design, is bigger than happiness. It's supposed to make you miserable at times so you can reflect on yourself, your beliefs and habits. It's supposed to scare you enough to decide to own up to your own humanity and be okay with other people's humanity. It's supposed to make you angry enough to stand up for yourself, set boundaries, face fears and get comfortable with the edgier sides of being human. Bored enough so you create a wider community, develop new interests and discover who YOU are when you're not part of a couple.  Marriage, and all relationships, inspire personal growth.

So why bother? If marriage creates such conflict, why would anyone even consider getting married in the first place? Because true, deep, thrilling happiness appears as a side effect to loving yourself. You only know who you are when you come up against someone who, you believe, isn't you. The resulting conflict usually shows us our similarities, on one level or another, to the person we hate. We have the exact same quality, only different, of the person we most dislike. We also mirror the exact same qualities as everyone we love and admire. We all know frustration, losing control, behaving badly, taking advantage, forgetting ourselves, giggling like a little girl, feeling vulnerable, loving, achieving: the common human experience. Finding understanding and having patience with the relationship process, begets true love and happiness. The Moody Blues sang it quite well...."And when you stop and think about it, You won't believe it's true, That all the love you've been giving, Has all been meant for you..."