Internet Wisdom

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about marriage and the long-term effects two of them have had on me. And I have had some big 'aha's'.

As I have said before, my mother and the other females in my family sent very strong messages about the necessity of marriage. In their minds marriage completed a woman. There was no place in this world for an unmarried woman. Her life was beyond tragic; it was pointless. In their minds all I needed was to be loved. Everything else would fall into place. I just needed to find a man who would love me. Then he would take care of me. I had no other purpose in life. First, however, I had to finish my education. That was the only caveat: get the college degree. But it was a little tricky because I was also supposed to meet my husband in college. Leaving college without being engaged was tantamount to being a sailor in the 15th century and sailing straight west. If I left college without having found 'the one', I would fall off the edge of the earth. The timing had to be just right. I had to find someone, get engaged, graduate, and then get married. There was an unbreakable sequence. I have spent much of the past several months combating those messages.

A friend of mine suggested marriage is a necessity for two purposes only: home ownership and children. The other stuff doesn't make marriage a necessity. I agree but with one additional purpose: end-of-life affairs. If you aren't married and your significant other dies, then their family members make all 'arrangements'; you have no say. That would be a reason supporting late-in-life marriages. The down side, in case no one has thought of that, would be your new spouse's children feeling you were going to steal their inheritance. I think if I ever married again (and for the past year I have been pretty sure there's not much of a chance of that), I would have to work hard to assure my new stepchildren and step-grandchildren I wasn't going to take all the money and goods they were expecting upon my spouse's death.

But that is by no means my big 'aha'. Nope. My big 'aha' was much bigger than that. In fact, it led me to my revelation. And this is it: I have discovered, to my amazement, that in both my marriages, I ended up feeling both trapped and taken advantage of. In fact, although both instances were vastly different unions, these were their end-products and they were remarkably similar. What was the common denominator? ME. Geeez, back to me. Again.

On the heels of this work came a little article on the internet this morning. It was about marriage. I liked much of what it said. It wasn't full of the commonplace jargon about how to make marriage work. It had a pragmatic style that captured my attention so I copied some of it here. But one thing jumped out at me, one thing that had been a huge realization for me. Can you find it? Here are the 'facts' according to this article:

Sixty-nine percent of all arguments between you and your partner will never be resolved. So don’t try so hard.
A couple that doesn’t fight is in trouble.
Having a “good enough” marriage is the most couples can expect and is actually quite an accomplishment.
Letting go is sometimes better than discussing everything to death.
Respect, not sex or money, is the most important factor in a happy marriage.
There are marital breaches worse than an affair.
A therapist cannot teach, train, or guide you to “be happy.” That is not a reasonable outcome to expect from therapy.


Did you think it was the one about having a 'good enough' marriage? It wasn't. Although that was eye-opening. Or that there are marital breaches worse than an affair? That was a surprise, too, but I have had other betrayals, so that wasn't such a surprise. In some conversations and thoughts I've had over the past year or so, it has become increasing obvious that the one thing that doomed both of my marriages was when I lost respect for my husbands. That is irreparable. I stayed both times in hopes that each would do something to redeem himself in my eyes. I waited for some new avenue to pop up where they could each show me how they could do the right thing, or succeed, or get their lives on a great track, but it never happened. Respect. You've got to respect your spouse. Or at least, I've got to respect my spouse. Lose respect and eventually the marriage will die. And in my case, lose respect and if you don't regain it, you will feel trapped and taken advantage of.