of love&marriage&divorce

After reading Klodiana’s http://klodiana-words.blogspot.com/2007/10/forever.html nifty essay on marriage and divorce (which was provoked by a previous entry from Belle on the same topic), I began to write her a reply on her blog only to discover that the same thing happened to me as her…it was to long.

In my mind there is nothing emotionally that my marriage to my husband has given me as opposed to the relationship that we had before getting married. Considering that we were living together even before marriage, I never felt any different as a woman after it; I just got to play Cinderella for one day in a pretty white dress, had an awesome party and that was all. I believe the distinctions are legal ones, and those sometimes make a big difference in terms of property rights, inheritances, legal status in a country, and even trivial things such as medical insurance etc. I do not consider my marriage as an encumbrance, meaning that if the moments ever comes that I doubt our relationship, it won’t be a factor in making the decision whether to go our separate ways or not. What will be a strong factor is my relationship which is not defined by marriage but the emotional relationship which I share with him. At the risk of being perceived as if I am advertising for divorce, I am going to say it: sometimes divorce is the “healthiest choice” when a relationship becomes lethal. I don’t think we should see it as a necessarily bad thing. After all it’s only natural that if you are going to have such a thing as marriage, where two people are united together legally/spiritually/physically, for those occasions when life is too long to stay together forever and people are transformed so much that you no longer co-exist, divorce is logical.

I don’t know if it’s just our super egos that play a role in the many divorces in today’s age. I think it’s that, but also a combination with a certain philosophy about modern day life where we feel that everything should come to us easily and with no struggles; therefore divorce is only convenient. If people have made a commitment to one another be it thru marriage or not, I think they should evaluate their relationship and make a determination if the benefits of keeping that relationship alive outweigh the costs required to get thru the struggle. I know I am talking economics here, but I think the same logic can apply in the issue at hand.

I suppose part of the reason why we have such higher rates of divorce today (apart from sociological reasons one of them being that women are highly more independent today economically and otherwise than they were 50 yrs ago—which is a great thing), is the fact that people are too damn lazy to work at making a relationship function, they don’t understand that when making a commitment to love is also making a commitment to make certain sacrifices so that you can make that relationship last. Love is not just that enormous fire that you feel at first when the butterflies tickle your guts and all is well and dandy; love is also that dying fire which needs more fuel to be rekindled, and sometimes even the ashes that are left behind after a huge storm. I believe that if you value your relationship with someone else, you should be committed to make sacrifices and give it your all to make it last, whether married or not. Therefore, it’s not marriage that makes the difference whether two people stick together or not, but how much they truly value their relationship, and ultimately how much they love one another.

Personally, amongst all the other things that life has thrown at me be it good or bad, I feel that the best luck I have had has been in love, and I feel even luckier to have committed to a relationship at a younger age than most my friends, because it makes me feel like the person whose legal name is my “husband” is my best friend of all. I know it sounds all sweet, cheesy and Hollywood romance type of crap, but I truly feel this way.