Sunday, February 28, 2010

Why Did I Get Married?

I'm not married, but I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I ever want to be. Some would say that since I'm not dating, I shouldn't even think about it. But I feel like marriages fail when you don't prepare for them. So if I ever want to be married, I need to know what tactics will keep that marriage from failing.

I come from a divorced home. This not surprising considering that my father and mother were each other's second marriage (60% of second marriages become divorces, DivorceRate.org). My cousin is about to get divorced, which is still not surprising (41% of first marriages become divorces) despite all of our family's efforts to choose good spouses.

Six of the women in my family sat down the other night to talk about what's happening with my cousin, and at the end of it, I found myself wondering: why do we even bother?

Why get married? For love? Tina Turner said, and I tend to agree, that love is nothing "but a second-hand emotion." There are lots of times when you love someone you don't marry or marry someone you don't love. Plenty of our ancestors married people they didn't love and stayed together for 50 or 60 years. So I don't think it's all about love.

My aunt said humans are supposed to create families; in other words we marry to create a family unit for the kids we want to have. I think that perspective is fine if one wants to have children. But, in my opinion, having children is something that needs to be re-evaluated as well. My cousin has a baby, and although she loves her daughter very much, and her daughter is happy, there will come a time when she will suffer because her father is not around. Is it responsible of parents to bring children into a family unit that isn't "complete"? And some people just don't make good parents. They are too involved in their job or their personal pursuits to give a child the kind of attention it would need. So I don't think having kids is a valid reason to marry, not with the issues we have in America today.

So why get married?
The only thing I've heard that makes sense to me is this: marry someone who makes you happy and will help you do your life better than you could do it without them. My friend is graduating this May with degrees in English education and journalism. She is engaged to a man who will graduate at the same time with a degree in social studies education. They fit. They will help each other throughout life.

I think if we were all brutally honest with ourselves, we would not completely throw love to the way side, but we would acknowledge that a marriage is only partially about love; it's mostly about commitment. If we treated our marriages like our businesses (made time investments in them, thought about the future while planning the present, thought about the whole team/family) then maybe we'd have better retention rates.

Or maybe I'm just a huge cynic.



2 comments:

  1. "we would acknowledge that a marriage is only partially about love; it's mostly about commitment. If we treated our marriages like our businesses (made time investments in them, thought about the future while planning the present, thought about the whole team/family) then maybe we'd have better retention rates."

    Why Get married? Because of health and insurance benefits. I'm curious of the 41% divorce rates... how many of those people date their ex-spouse for over a year? how many had the expectation that marriage would fix all their problems and it would all be sunshine and rainbows?

    People didn't get divorced in the old days because divorce was taboo. To be divorced meant being a social outcast, possibly being disowned by your family. You stayed in dead end/abusive relationships...where now we stand up or ourselves and demand better.

    It is more about commitment than love. It's more about work than effortless sappy montages. But when done right, and worked out well, it's the most beautiful thing that can be experienced.

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  2. "But when done right, and worked out well, it's the most beautiful thing that can be experienced."
    I agree with you. "WHEN DONE RIGHT" and yet it's sooo hard to do right.

    And I'm not saying we should all stay married to save the divorce rate. If my cousin and her husband stayed married, it would break her and hurt her baby more than the absent-father thing would. Sometimes you have to leave.
    But she might not have to leave now if she hadn't married him then because she loved him and wanted a family. He was never the type to work for it.

    I'm just not sure how many people in the world, especially men in my world, are willing to do the work. SOME days I don't know if I am willing to do the work.

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