MARRIAGE

    Up until the moment you say "I do" your life is pretty much predetermined for you.  But once you agree to share that life with someone else, it really gets interesting!

    I started to write about this major step into the unknown about a week ago; but I've rethought the whole subject over and over.  A week ago (June 28) marked the 62nd anniversary of my first wedding day.  My last posting concerned learning from life's lessons.  Well, I didn't realize it at the time; but my first marriage was a two-decade long major lesson!  I hadn't even internalized the lesson until just now as I reviewed the whole experience in my mind, contrasting it with the experience of my second marriage (which is still enduring after four decades).

    Sixty-two years ago I had just turned twenty and needed a note from my mommy (my daddy was in Korea) to be allowed to marry a girl who had just turned twenty-one and didn't need a note.  Both of us were too young, but we wouldn't listen to our elders' advice on the subject.  Besides, in those days young people didn't just "hook-up" for a few months when they felt the urge of primitive drives.  Easy-to-use contraceptives were not available nor were the ones out there available to unmarried couples except through clandestine sources.  Plus, cultural and religious pressures to remain celibate until marriage were much stronger then.

    Most of the mistakes I made in that marriage were traceable to my being self centered.  And most of her mistakes were made because of her desire to control her environment and to control her husband.  Add to that the inability of either partner to communicate clearly and consistently with the other; and you have the "perfect storm" to capsize the ship of marital bliss.

    For the purpose of this particular blog, let's talk about being self-centered.  All of us have this problem from the time we are born--when it is necessary to survival to call attention to our needs in a very aggressive manner.  To live life well, however, it requires us to look outside ourselves to find ways to serve others without demanding some sort of "payment" to ourselves.  To serve others any other way is to become a manipulator of other people for our own self-gratification.

    As applied to marriage, therefore, both partners must want to please the other in every way--not just sexually.  It is impossible to do this unless a pattern of communication (verbal and nonverbal) is established.  More about communicating in the next blog.  Even with good communication there will be times when one or both partners is not pleased with how things are going.  That's when another trait is indispensable: patience.  Patience is not a trait that is learned so much as it is practiced.  It is practiced by willfully doing it every time you want to just "blow up."

    Another willful action that must be learned and practiced is forgiveness.  Forgiveness is not easy, because it requires sincerity to be genuine forgiveness.  Forgiveness also requires another "for"--forgetting.  If you say you forgive someone but you don't forget what you forgave, it is not true forgiveness!

    Back to the beginning: to enter into an agreement with another to live your life together requires a special kind of commitment.  The way my present wife and I like to explain it is that you should first become "best friends."  That means that you like to be with each other, to talk to each other, to do things (other than sex) together long before you cuddle up in bed together.  Then you talk about how you view God, the world, and even just the chores around the house.  If you seem to be "on the same page" with all of that, then you might just consider the possibility of a long life together.