Comments for blog.limedaley.com/post/thoughts-on-marriage

Comment #1140

2007-07-04T07:51:39Z

I don't know what it means on marriage in US. I love children. The very reason for me to get marriage one day will be to have my own children.

http://www.idovideo.tv/blog/

Comment #1139

2007-05-09T15:41:38Z

"adustyframe" wrote a letter to her new-sister-to-be and I thought it was quite good. You can read it here: Advice to the new bride (or groom)

Comment #1138

2007-01-18T14:10:54Z

You beat me to it... I was planning to post this same letter on my blog. :)

Comment #1137

2007-01-18T12:34:51Z

marina: Yet, when life gets tough, who doesn't like having someone being selfishly in love with us?

I don't know - that sounds odd to me. Perhaps if you are comparing not being loved to someone loving selfishly, it would be better, although even with that, I am not sure.

I haven't really liked John's thought on "selfish" love, though I haven't had anything to say against it. I would like to think that I am not loving my wife for my benefit, but it seems hard for me to objectively prove that is not the case, as there are certainly an uncountable number of benefits of Heather loving me.

Someone found this article by searching for "Adultery or true love" in Google, and my heart aches for this person. Since this article has been posted for less than twelve hours, the odds are pretty good that it was one of you who searched for those terms, and I have been thinking about marina and what she said about her marriage - and I am thinking that cannot be the right answer - that it might look all glittery and shiny, and that some guy appears to love better than her husband, but what will happen in ten years (or perhaps way less than that) when the glitter has faded?

All of the other searches were just for "marriage", so it might not be marina, but someone was searching for that.

Memphis: I am glad to hear that you aren't getting married, at least not in immediate future - as you said, some think the same way you do, but get married anyway. As for your question about whether if a marriage ends, was it really a marriage - I think the answer is that it was a marriage, it did happen - you can't ignore or annul it (a friend had to get an annulment from the Catholic church to pretend like she wasn't ever married before, and she thought that was pretty silly, I think she said something like, "Yes, it did happen, yes, we did make mistakes, but it happened".

I question the "ideal" of wanting to remain selfish - certainly there are lots of people who think that is the only way to live, and the only way society can sustain itself - Ayn Rand has totally missed the goals and point of Christianity (I assume she is trying to attack Christianity in, "Atlas Shrugged"), but there are lots of people who agree with her, or at least think they do.

I think that being a Christian and having faith in a savior who redeems all of life changes the entire thing - obviously, I don't have a good perspective on what it means to be married when you aren't a Christian, or what sorts of questions go through one's mind. I know from my own life that our faith has brought us together more than anything else - and we tend to be more on the side of feelings shouldn't fade, and smile at each other when people talk about how they're sure that the feelings of love must have faded since we have been married five years.

Biblically, I have enjoyed Proverbs 5, and though it is a "command", I don't find it a burdensome one. "rejoice with the wife of thy youth", I suppose I am still young (30th birthday coming shortly!) so perhaps I will have different thoughts as I grow older, but I read verses 15-21 with joy, and thank God for the wife He has given me.

Comment #1136

2007-01-18T07:18:54Z

You make some excellent points about what marriage IS and IS NOT.

"The love that makes marriage work is not a feeling of love. If it was, then feelings come and go and so would marriage. Marriage love is a DECISION to value the other person as highly as yourself...."

You later talk about 'true love,' and that, to me, is an ideal--and not the element of the type of love a marriage demands, in spite of the often evanescent feeling, as you were describing it.

"BUT that is not true love. Love is self-giving. That is, when it does not benefit yourself and only the other person you still do it."

The love you were describing is more accurately defined as "unconditional love," I'd think, though. The connotation that the term "true love" holds is a bit more idealistically sappy and romantic--a love that does incorporate that feeling and transcends that agreement involved in maintaining a marriage. Within that ideal, that feeling of love does persist forever, it never does fade. Who am I to be bold and declare it unnattainable? I won't do that here, although I've been guilty of it before. (Sometimes I can be a bit extreme.) But to be more accurate, it'd probably suffice to say it is rare, if not impossible. So even in its absence, a married party is obligated by the vows they took to make it work anyway. That's only part of why this marriage thing is risky business.

I do admire that, and I respect it. But I don't want it. I want to be free to abide by my whims, acknowledge a situation for what it is, and act in accordance with that as I go, aware that at any moment, it could all change. A marriage, however, demands the dismissal of such whims in the name of mutual agreement to forever, no matter what. And that "no matter what" business is quite a bit of pressure--far too much for me. Some call that commitment-phobic. I don't mind.

That said, I do believe there's something to be said for the validity of other types of love aside from unconditional. That missing element does not necessarily make love less true, (to me, that is--I understand that idea could seem ridiculous and take a bit of arguing, but I'll leave it at that anyway.) It just makes the love unsuitable for the sustenance of a marriage. The quest for true love and the pursuit of a successful marriage are quite arguably drastically different things, as you insinuated:

"People think you get married just because you are in love."

And I love the summing up of marriage as a vow "... to never give up on each other."

This is a big dang deal. This is nothing to be taken lightly. Many in our society have forgotten that, and the problem lies in that we as a society continually fail to make that distinction as our fascination with falling in love grows.

Don't get me wrong--as I was getting at before, there's definitely something to be said for the feeling of love and allowing relationships to grow out of that. But, as you emphasis, this is not what a marriage depends on, and should thus not be used as the basis of its survival.

There's even something to be said for being selfish, I believe. It's been a personal declaration of mine for years that I never want to get married because I very consciously want the freedom to remain selfish. I'm a self-proclaimed serial monogamist who sincerely believes that "it" works as long as "it" works and who has no desire to push anything any further than that. Enjoy it for what it is while it is, and for what it was when it's gone, but when it's gone, move on. This is inaccordance with the feeling of love. I'm a fan of it, fickle as it may be.

Many people take this serial-monogamist approach, but are not so honest or self-aware to acknowledge that they're doing so. That is, many enter into a union based on little more than the feeling of love, in the hopes that this ideal will be sustained for all eternity and that it is this that will make thier marriage work. But no feeling can accomplish that--just as you stated--only a significant amount of work and drastic level of dedication and committment can. But out society has become one who gives up and parts ways when that feeling does not suffice, and this is where we've gone wrong in calling this union and that a marriage, all willy-nilly: When we consider that a defining component of marriage is that all-important "forever" requirement, a marriage that ends was never a marriage to begin with. Is that fair to conclude?

Comment #1135

2007-01-18T06:00:18Z

Hi,
I came across this and it certainly made me think. I am having a rotten time in my marriage. 10 years later, 2 little kids, lots of frustration, bad communication from day 1, and yes, the feeling of being in love is long time gone although I do love my husband. Do not like him though.

I like how you mention the fact that being in love makes one feel good, therefore it is a selfish feeling that has nothing in common with loving someone in a totally unselfish manner. Yet, when life gets tough, who doesn't like having someone being selfishly in love with us?