Many ask WHEN the best time in life to get married is. I personally do not think that economic considerations should be an obstacle. It should be even cheaper for two to live together than apart, as long as the respective parents are willing to continue helping as they would have done had the marriage not taken place. In any case, money comes and goes, but cannot take a truly solid relationship with it.
What I think is most important is WHY people get married, because becoming husband and wife changes the chemistry of a relationship, and many WHYs eventually disappear, taking a shaky relationship along with them. People often identify physical attraction or “personality” as being among the most volatile of these WHYs, and with this I will not disagree.
But they seldom take into account as WHYs such inner needs as affection and appreciation which, when missing at home, are often sought elsewhere. If the relationship is based on the affection and appreciation that each can RECEIVE FROM the other, then if and when time and routine wear them thin, a rift can grow between the two.
Another WHY that is especially subtle and very prevalent among young marriages is the desire for independence, freedom from home and parents, and a sense of being grown up and responsible. In this case, getting married is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire – from dependence to interdependence. If either partner has not achieved inner freedom from emotional dependence on the other, then marriage can become an enslaving chain, ending in heartbreak.
When my wife and I were going to get married, we consulted with elderly couples whose marriages had survived the hidden coral reefs and sandbars, and they all coincided in one thing: a relationship can only last if each one is motivated by what he or she can PUT INTO the marriage, not by what he or she is GETTING OUT of it. And the WHYs I mentioned above are all things we GET OUT of a marriage.
It is like what Eric Fromm said in The Art of Living. Immature love, like that of a child to its mother, says “I love you because I need you” (get something I need or want out of you). Mature love, on the other hand, says “I need you because I love you.” This may sound simply profound or profoundly simple, but I have found that aspiring to that level requires overcoming “the insistent self”, which can be a painful, lifelong process.
In his Seven Habits, Stephen Covey tells the story of a man who complained that his marriage was on the rocks. After several rounds of Stephen insisting that he “love her” and the man repeating that all emotion had disappeared, Covey explains that love is not a feeling, but a proactive decision to do things to make the other person happy.
When willful acts of love are carried out, then the feeling of love results. But most people put the cart before the horse, waiting for an emotion to motivate them into reacting lovingly. And that can grow old real fast! So we need to learn to love each other as a conscious decision, not just because our couple makes us happy, but despite the fact that in some cases a relationship –or even the lack thereof– can be quite painful.
Although “falling in love” may be a first baby step towards real love, it is no more than that, and may leave us far from the desired goal if many other steps are not taken. However, let no–one convince you that those steps must be taken before marriage. You have the rest of your life together to make the journey, which by the way they say has four distinct stages: first the honeymoon, then the kids, then the fights, and finally love!
For thousands of years marriages were, and in some cultures still are, arranged by parents, giving their children no say in the matter. And yet divorces are traditionally scarce as hens’ teeth in these cases, because the two approach marriage as a mandate to serve one another with hand, mind and heart, in a spirit of learning to love and grow towards each other. Might this not also be applicable to voluntary marriages?
(Tuesday, September 15, 1998)
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