We made the road trip to Wisconsin, as I mentioned, to attend two family weddings. The first one is now behind us. It was a beautiful, contemporary event. The groom is a favorite nephew of ours, extraordinarily intelligent, a caring, witty fellow who’s got his head screwed on as straight as any of his generation.
We hadn’t met his bride before, but she seems perfectly suited to him. She was stunning in a gorgeous, simple dress. Her smart, quick sense of humor effortlessly threw right back at him the kind of zinger comments indicative of his quirky personality. Together they were delightful, and the type of young couple Randy and I would love to get to know better.
When we attend a wedding now, nearly 50 years after our own, it’s natural to do some comparisons to how culture, society, traditions, people, and the world has changed. That’s not to say I’m judging anything or anyone. But it’s interesting to think about those things, and what the consequences of those changes has wrought over those years. Whether those consequences are for better or worse is for the reader to discern.
When Randy and I got married in a Catholic church, the priest put a kibosh on anything resembling writing our own vows to each other. We wanted to have Desiderata read at our wedding. That, especially, was a no go. We stood in front of that priest, in a building they called God’s House, and made vows witnessed by the priest who represented God, and a number of family and friends. We vowed to stick with each other in good times and bad, through thick and thin, till death. At this week’s wedding, they made a lot of vows to each other, including not to bring home another dog without prior agreement, but I don’t remember hearing the “till death do us part” thing.
Death! Yes, well, we have to admit there have been a few times in our nearly 50 years of marriage that thoughts of hastening death for the other fleetingly crossed our minds. We are normal, mentally balanced human beings. But because we’re normal, mentally balanced human beings, the fleeting thoughts fled and we just kept keeping on. After all, we made vows, solemn promises, to each other. We now recognize how seriously difficult those vows are.
I don’t think anyone, on their wedding day, realizes just what the heck they’re getting into. Most brides and grooms gush about how much they love the other. And they do, I’m sure, in the way they understand the common romanticized definition of love. Falling in love involves almost euphoric feelings of natural, bodily produced, feel-good chemicals. It’s highly emotional and can be quite a roller-coaster ride. But love changes, a lot, over the course of a successful marriage. To withstand the thick and thin, love must morph into less emotional behavior where each partner is more concerned about how the other is feeling than how they themselves are feeling. Long lasting marital love is far more rock solid. It is sacrificial and selfless. Believe me, some days, perhaps LOTS of days, those solemn vows are the only things holding the marriage together.
I once read an article by a relatively young fellow named Matt Walsh talking about his marriage. He said, “I didn’t choose her because she’s The One, she’s The One because I chose her.” His article (linked in the previous sentence) is excellent. The money quote is, “I married her because I love her — I chose to love her — and I chose to live the rest of my life in service to her.”
Let that sink in: I chose to live the rest of my life in service to her. In service to each other. And if children come along, in service to them. I doubt that’s what most brides and grooms are thinking about on their wedding day.
I’m a realist. There are days, or seasons perhaps, of marriage when you are not in service to your spouse. Too often in our current culture wedding “vows” are honored as long as they’re convenient and pleasing. Randy is fond of saying that marriage is not a 50%/50% proposition. He claims it must be more like 70%/30% so when you aren’t living up to your 50%, your spouse picks up the slack by giving whatever extra is needed. That’s how successful marriages evolve and exist and thrive.
I can almost guarantee any couple who enters marriage thinking that if it doesn’t work for them, they can always get divorced, will not make the effort it takes to stay married. We’ve found that staying married certainly requires a love commitment to our partner, but also to doing the often very hard work of problem solving, turning the other cheek, learning from our missteps and foibles to grow together, and understanding and forgiving our imperfect humanness. Every difficulty we’ve been through helped us recommit to each other. That recurrent commitment made our marriage bond stronger than it was before.
From what I could tell, our newly married nephew and niece-in-law seem to have the potential and attitude for the long haul. We were honored to be invited to celebrate with them the beginning of the life they’ve chosen to navigate together.
P.S. Role models are also darn important to long, successful marriages. Both the bride and groom have parents who have been married to each other for 30ish years or more. It was gratifying to see and hear their parents talk to and about each other in ways that were apparent they are great role models for their kids.
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