I'm sitting at McDonald's this morning (seems I write a lot of these at McDonald's) doing my normal morning thing (reading the news, taking care of odd tasks, etc.) and for whatever reason was thinking about all the praise and accolade I have received over the past several weeks for being married to one woman for 32 years. Until today I hadn't really thought much of it. Being married to the love of my life and best friend Theo is as natural to me as breathing so the fact that our marriage continues after 32 years just didn't seem like a big deal. After all, isn't that the way it is supposed to be?
My 32 years of marriage is far from a record. Yesterday I was filing away some old newspaper clippings and came across a short article from 1999 announcing Theo's aunt and uncle's 60th anniversary. I am barely half way there. Yet the reality is that marriages that endure "till death we do part" are quickly going the way of the dinosaur. Last Friday on the front page of USA Today one headline reported that 41% of children born in this era are born to single mothers or are raised for some period of time in a single-parent home. Having grown up without a father at home and knowing first hand the holes this creates in ones life I could not help but feel sadness when I saw this statistic. This statistic is of course related at least in part to the rising divorce rate in this country. Exact statistics on divorce rate vary depending on the source, but most sources generally agree that up to 50% of all first marriages will end in divorce. It is easy to blame this on poor preparation of our youth for marriage (more on that later) but if you dissect the statistics the divorce rate actually rises to as much as 75% for a third marriage. This suggests that "practice makes perfect" rarely applies to relationships. Understand that I am well aware that there instances of special circumstance that make walking away from a marriage unavoidable and perhaps even the right thing to do. Even so the trend is alarming.
My expertise on marriage is confined to my knowledge on what has made mine work. As a man of faith I grew up with the clear understanding that marriage was intended to last the duration of ones life. Whether or not one shares my faith understanding the marriage is intended to be a lifelong commitment it where it all starts. A solid marriage is not built on emotions, hormones, and other physiological components of attraction. Not that these things are bad, but they are simply the rewards and sometimes consequences of a healthy marriage relationship. Over the years I've had some interesting conversations with my sons regarding "finding the one." My advice has always been (this is the Reader's Digest version) that there is nothing wrong with physical attraction, but in the end they better have a deep friendship with their life partner because that is what the love that solidifies a marriage is base upon. The wonderful benefit that comes from this foundation is that the physical attraction never goes away because your life partner never deviates from perfect.
In my view the number one reason why marriages fail is selfishness. As a spouse I can never evaluate the success of my marriage based on the meeting of my needs. Instead I base the success of my marriage on whether or not I am meeting the needs of my spouse. I can never give with the expectation of getting something back. If both partners pursue their relationship in this way it is pretty easy to see how healthy balance is achieved. Instead of a 50:50 proposition you benefit from a 100:100 proposition. If you owned a business wouldn't you jump all over that? As strange as it sounds in many ways marriage is like a business because it is all about managing resources in such a way that it grows and prospers (you can define resources any way you like). It takes work. You have good times and bad. If you do it well it just gets better and better and less susceptible perturbations. If one or both partners in marriage approaches the relationship selfishly it simply does not work because in my experience selfish people's personal needs are never satisfied. If you want to have a good marriage..get over yourself...and focus on building the partnership so the marriage will endure.
I will conclude by saying that saving the institution of marriage has importance beyond the quality of life for husband and wife. If you look at what is happening to our youth today one would be hard pressed to argue that growing up without a true family is healthy. I could write a lot on this just from my own experience but won't do that today. Suffice to say that there are periods in a child's life where mentoring, by both mother and father, set the course to adulthood. With so many children being raised today by single parents I'm left to wonder if our next generation will be equipped to mentor the generation that follows. Single parents are not necessarily bad people, but as I witnessed with my own mother rarely have the time to make life work and still be a full-time mom or dad.
Cheers
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