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My comment on R's Mom's post on whether marriage is an over rated institution has evoked strong responses from several young readers as I had expected. Several young women seem to think that marriage is an over rated concept and that a woman/man need not marry unless the need for matrimony is strongly felt. They are not wrong in saying so. We have several young men and women postponing marriage for the simple reason that they don't want to marry unless they find the right partner. Some do not wish to compromise on their careers and even those who do not have a good job and earn a small amount by taking tuitions or marketing home made snacks are seen to postpone marriage saying that if they marry a man with a modest income and a large family of parents, unwed sisters and unemployed brothers to support, they would have to continue earning their pocket money as before and cater to the whims of in laws who would treat them more as a domestic help than a daughter in law. To add to their misery they would be expected to produce a child (read son) within a year after marriage with no means to give him/her good attention let alone education. I cannot say much against this line of thought and I do agree that this happens in several families even today and girls are better off leading their lives as singles rather than marry a man who cannot take care of their needs.
I agree that my comment was based purely on personal experience. 40 years back I did have teething troubles and finally I did win hearts. Today I enjoy a good rapport with my acquired family and I don't differentiate between them and my own. This was possible only because there was a willingness from all concerned including myself to accommodate the others in the set up. I won't go into the reasons since they have no meaning now but it was possible only because of certain compulsions that were acutely felt both by me and my husband's family.
These compulsions seem to have disappeared from people's lives and society has changed a lot since the time I came to Jamshedpur as a new bride. I hope I am not wrong in saying that a marriage works only if there is mutual respect in the relationship. However, I do admit to feeling a little scared at the attitude that society seems to be acquiring towards marriage. The present scenario of a monogamous relationship with one's spouse took years to evolve. I would suggest that one fights for mutual respect and dignity within marriage rather than claim that it is not indispensible. I had written about my friend Prema in an earlier post. There were times when I too had felt that she was better off without marriage. Today she is handicapped and with no children to support her and it is the husband who takes care of her. She had a promising career but she had to opt for medical separation after her stroke and while her colleagues earn 5 digit salaries she is stuck with 75% of her last drawn salary which is just around Rs.4000/- per month. Her husband's siblings allow her to stay in the house built by their father only because she takes care of a mentally retarded sister in law and no one else wants to share the burden. Twenty years back Prema had dreams of raising children and having a successful career. Today she has only her marriage to fall back on and she is quite happy about it. She has no resentment towards anyone including her brothers and sisters in law.
People talk of shifting to old age homes post retirement. Prema cannot even afford the cheapest of such homes. Her own brother and sisters are all older than her and welcome her only on occasional visits. They have their health problems and are themselves dependent on their children. Prema has no one to turn to except her husband and their marriage works on mutual respect alone. Today I feel at least for people like her, marriage is an important part of their existence and what befell Prema can happen to anybody.
A final word. Desigirl of GGTS had responded to my comment by saying that we humans are social animals and rules that apply to wild animals need not be applicable to us. Several wild animals and plants have been domesticated and the wheat that we consume is one such example as are the cattle we rear. Their wild ancestors have been traced and several back crosses are done in order to bring desired qualities in them - disease resistance being one of them. Marriage is a tried and tested institution and one should strive towards improving it rather than giving up at the first challenge one faces.
Credit: dating-coach-anita.blogspot.com
What happens when we mess up by avoiding the marriage or love bond?
God calls us to close intimate relationships with others especially our spouse or life partner. In general we are called to "love" one another. In marriage God call us to 'cling to,' bond with, become emotionally and securely attached to our partner.
Many of us habitually and unconsciously avoid close intimate relationships and, therefore, the marriage or love bond. We mess with God's plan. We fall (sinfully) short of God's plan. We do not cooperate with God in His "putting you together."
Instead we develop (sinful) habits that allow us (unconsciously) to avoid the marriage bond. By avoiding close intimate relationships we mess with God's provision - the love bond. We too much act in ways that "put assunder."
The (sinful) habit patterns and personality patterns we fall into can be compared with addictions. Like an addiction there is some reward. Like fig leaves that only partially cover our shame and reduce our vulnerability, these habits only partially overcome loneliness and somewhat unsatisfactorily meet our need for emtional security.
Marriage is the institution many persons turn to for love, to meet their god-given need for close, safe, bonding and real communion with another. However, a civil and religious institution cannot meet our needs; cannot guarantee love.
Marriage is not, ultimately, holy. Only God is ultimately holy and the source of life, love and health.
Love, itself, is holier than marriage. Love is of God and God is the ultimate source of love. Legal marriage claims to sanctify sex but my intuition is that love bonding, the marriage bond, is what sanctifies sex, not marriage.
Marriage is not Love. Marriage is built by fallen broken people who habitually and unconsciously avoid close intimate relationships. Each of us has our dark side (the potential for evil in our emotional repertoire). Therefore each partner carries the potential to undermine their marriage. Once you let your 'dark side' take over your marriage bond, your love bond, the heart and core of your marriage will soon die, the cord of life broken. What remains is not life giving.
The sinful fallen nature in each of us will allow us to avoid close intimate relationship with God and our life partner. Our dark side will allow the marriage bond to weaken and, eventually, to break. Therefore, most of us would clearly benefit from a set of sessions in bonding focused couple therapy also called emotionally focused couple therapy. (These are links to my web site: www.HealMyLife.com.)
Marriage Addiction is dependence upon a substitute for real, holy, life-giving marriage. Marriage addiction provides some companionship (so we are not alone) and some safety (another lives with us) without requiring us to to take the risk of love bonding. In marriage addiction we avoid the vulnerability of intimacy and so fail to achieve a love bond or marriage bond. Outwardly this may look like marriage but in reality it is silent divorce. It lacks the power of God's real holy marriage.
In marriage addiction we are in a state of disobedience to God and avoidance of love bonding. We are living without a life-giving relationship. We are living in death and that is not good for our health.
What is holy is healthy and what is healthy is holy. This is why Jesus insisted on healing on the Sabbath and why he declared that man is not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath is made for man. True love in a secure marriage bond in life-giving and healthy. So how healthy and holy is a marriage where there is no real, holy, life-giving love bond?
GEORGE HARTWELL M.SC. CHRISTIAN COUNSELLOR PROVIDES CHRISTIAN COUNSELLING ( COUNSELING / THERAPY ) THROUGH 90 MINUTE IN PERSON SESSIONS AT HIS OFFICE IN MISSISSAUGA. AS A PROFESSIONAL CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE COUNSELLOR GEORGE PROVIDES CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE COUNSELLING COUNSELING FOR COUPLES IN OAKVILLE, MISSISSAUGA, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA.
" Marriages fail for a mixture of reasons and contemporary is a covering for saying that ended marriages fail nowadays in view of the fact that splitting up is easy as contemporary is no longer any stigma take undue credit to divorce. Marriages frequently fail in view of the fact that the couple don't try to spend less the marriage or don't tattle what steps to post to spend less the marriage. As you are asking "CAN I Sustain MY Marriage vows", you are unavoidably plucky to put maneuver into budget your marriage; round is some information to help you.
The first thing you need to do is make an honest assessment of your marriage to see if it is penalty budget. If you and your consort still care for each from the past, it is feasible that the breakup of the relationship can be avoided. If contemporary is still love in your marriage, your novel difficulties may well be a "BAD Garden" and getting set down this time will event to make your marriage stronger. Cover and overcoming adversity together close by design works to prove the joint along with the people intricate.
This is not the time to develop laying overstretch on your consort, but it is the time for you to aspect and aver overstretch for your part in the report. You have to very indicate what wounding behaviour on your part has contributed to the threatened breakup of your marriage. Doubtless you disturbance your consort was behaving in an silly way. May well it be that your spouse's behaviour was caused by you being inconsiderate?
If you can aspect your faults and depute to shifting your bad customs, you will include besotted a big step towards budget your marriage, but it takes two to keep a relationship kindly. You can't plug your consort to love you and, if that love has not here, your consort compel not be plucky to try to spend less the marriage. Ordered if contemporary are youthful or holier-than-thou ideas intricate, a loveless marriage will not arise. All you can do is tell your consort that you recognise someplace you went gripe, you ruling to change, and you are plucky to work at making the marriage untouched again.
If you and your consort each clear that contemporary is enough good left in your relationship to sanction you to refurbish the marriage, this is the point someplace you compel want to seat getting help from a relationship counsellor. Communicate are a mixture of dedicated marriage counsellors to neediness from, so you duty make recognized each you and your consort are happy with a concede counsellor ahead you depute to a course of counselling.
If either party is embarrassed with a counsellor, the counselling sessions will be ghastly, so it is main that you neediness shrewdly. Vigorous with the gripe counsellor can include an shoddy effect. It can be fussily rude if one party feels that the counsellor is cargo their spouse's side against them; this situation can cause as well distance along with the couple. You and your consort have to each feel that your counsellor is dynamic to help each of you by present-day objective help and not criticism. With interest I include been able to give you some help with your question "CAN I Sustain MY MARRIAGE?" A big part of budget a marriage on the rim of breakdown smear in knowing right what you duty do to avoid breach, how to do it and how to get the help you need to repossess your happiness.Associated articles
* Relationships: Can This Marriage vows Be Saved? Yes, 4 Ladder To Achievement And Dizziness
* Relationships: You Can Sustain Your Marriage vows By Creating Friendliness, 6 Benign Commands
* Relationships: I Take on Firm Association Counsel To Sustain My Marriage- How Do I Contract In Conflict?
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