Love and Marriage
The bliss that don’t
miss
Usually, this space would be filled with witty commentary
about an event of the day that caught my attention. (At least,
that’s the way it’s supposed to work in theory.) This
time, though, I have something a bit more personal to share.
On April 18, 2008, my parents will be celebrating their 50th wedding
anniversary. In today’s world of celebrity weddings and
divorces, it’s a pretty big feat. Even before the advent
of blink-or-you’ll-miss-them marriages, hitting 50 years
was considered a major milestone. Now, you have to wonder if half
the people out there reading this are wondering if my parents
are aware that marriage isn’t a permanent thing.
Fortunately for them, and for my two older brothers, I’m
sure they’re aware of how easy it is to get a divorce, but
they’re just not interested. Sure, they may fight or exchange
heated words every once in a while, but they’ve stuck together.
Part of that, I think, is the times in which they were raised.
Back in the 30s and 40s, divorce wasn’t considered in such
high regard. When two people got together, they stayed together.
Maybe it was because they took the “’Til death do
us part” bit pretty seriously. Maybe it was because Guy
Lombardo was topping the charts instead of Britney Spears, although
Lombardo might not have looked too bad in a schoolgirl outfit…or
so I’ve heard.
These days, the entire concept behind marriage has been cheapened
while the ceremony itself has become more expensive. There is
a cottage industry catering specifically to women wanting to have
“the perfect wedding” and business is booming. It’s
almost become an expectation that the bride’s father will
have to take out a loan against his house, car, 401k, family,
and dog just to make sure his little girl has the kind of wedding
she will cherish for the rest of her life…or at least until
the divorce is final. I’m surprised Congress hasn’t
come up with a way to turn this into an entitlement, and no, this
isn’t a request for Congress to look into that. You have
more important things to do, like holding hearings about steroid
use in Major League Baseball while gas prices go higher than Tommy
Chong huffing ether with Keith Richards.
Yet, in spite of the beauty of the day and the tons of money spent
on the wedding itself, it seems the people getting married don’t
often consider what a marriage is. It’s not two people hooking
up so the wife will have someone to fix things around the house
and the man will have a go-to gal to deny him sex on a regular
basis. A marriage is one where both the husband and the wife give
up some of the things they used to do when they were single to
gain much more by being together.
Ah, but there’s a tiny little problem with that. Seems we’ve
been told by the media that we shouldn’t deny ourselves
the good things in life. Wife doesn’t want you watching
Internet porn? The porn companies will bill your credit card discreetly!
Husband doesn’t think you should buy shoes like Imelda Marcos?
Do it behind his back! Once you let secrecy and deceit into the
relationship, it’s only a matter of time before that magical
(and unbelievably expensive) wedding day becomes a memory and
a few more pictures to either rip up or split in the divorce.
And if there are children involved, the impact is far more devastating.
I’m of a generation where divorce or unhappy marriages are
a fact of life. Not all of my fellow Gen Xers have that, mind
you, but more than a few do. This distorts their views of normal
husband-wife relations in a way that leaves deep emotional scars,
ones that may not be able to be “worked out” on a
psychiatrist’s couch. Then, the cycle continues when the
Xers affected by that situation have their own children, either
in or out of wedlock, which will impact their kids, and so on.
Thankfully, I never had that problem, and I wouldn’t wish
it on anyone.
So, what makes my parents’ marriage work? A healthy combination
of love, respect, honor, trust, and hard work. Instead of being
shallow individuals more interested in tanning and plastic surgery
than being a good husband or wife, my parents put everything they
had into the marriage and the family that resulted from it. And
as far as this pundit is concerned, they are the gold standard
when it comes to marriage.
And that’s the Bottom Line.
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