Marriages survive all the time, but does passionate love survive marriage?

Still dreaming of getting married? Let me tell you a little something about marriage, you naive little thing. 😉

Let me tell you this, first: I believe in eternal love, I believe in passionate, fierce, true love, I believe in love at first sight, I believe in telepathic connection between soulmates, I am a true romantic, absolutely starry eyed and heart burning romantic, but I do not believe in marriage. Marriage is like trying to trap a fairy – rumour has it that they die in captivity.

When we first meet that special someone, we find loving them is the easiest thing in the world. When they call, our heart leaps and you go into a gooey idiot phase where you go all “no you hang up” mode and all that dumb stuff, no need to repeat all those embarrassing details, is there? Let’s just say everything is brilliant in this world.

Then, we decide this is the one person for us, and we promise to love them forever, and we mean it, how could we NOT love them forever? They are perfect, aren’t they?

Here is the danger when considering marriage… If there is an ounce of you that thinks that by marrying them, you can keep the competition away and your relationship is now final, you have already lost your love. You cannot trap love. You cannot command it to stay, you cannot expect it to be there when you need it, simply because you said “I do”. You can expect a man or wife to be there just because they said “I do”, but their love, NOT that simple. You can easily maintain the outward signs of a marriage, but keeping what made you two so special to begin with will be so difficult inside a marriage that only people who are masters at balancing their emotions and navigating their relationships should even attempt it, if they want to keep the love real!

The reason for this is, that marriage is a contract over giving and receiving something that should always be a gift. If you start counting how much you have received love, adoration, help, support or anything that goes within a marriage, if you take anything of it for granted “because you are my wife/husband” you are pointing at that contract and saying: “you are not good enough”. If you start comparing your relationship to other couples or your spouse to other spouses, and find that yours doesn’t take the trash out nearly as often, you start wondering whether they love or respect you enough to be considered a “good spouse”. This becomes an insult to your ego, and that’s when things go sour really quick. You have chosen this one, and what does it say about you? Someone who doesn’t respect you enough to take the trash out every so often or someone who isn’t home enough or doesn’t call you when they’re late because they just don’t care. You start summing up their flaws and how poorly they treat you and what it says about their feelings for you, and you start, without even trying to tally up scores of who gave more love to the other during the last quarter.

Marriage can only ever be entered if you genuinely truly feel that whatever happens, however much more you end up giving than your spouse, you will be happy and proud to be able to call them your wife or husband. You should also extend that so that should you file for a divorce, you’d still feel proud to call them your ex, in a way that you honour the relationship you had, and them as the other half of it. If you think, for a second, that “if that **** will ever hurt me, I will let them have it” you are not going to survive as lovers. And, should they ever fall in love with someone else, you should not feel insulted but awe that they ever loved you to begin with – it’s THAT MUCH LOVE that is needed for a marriage to not turn you  bitter if it doesn’t go right.

Marriage, when entered into with the right person is pretty unnecessary, really. If someone asks you to marry them, your first reaction probably should be: “Don’t you trust me?” rather than “Oh finally!” – Joking a little. 🙂 Why do you want a ball and a chain on my leg? Why do you want to own me? Truth be told, proposal can be made either by thinking: “Will you be mine?” or “I offer you myself to do as you wish with.” The answer to the first is no, the answer to the second is: “Only if you allow me to give myself to you to do as you wish with.” And these should not be pretty sentiments, but you should truly feel that humble, that devoted, that amazed by your lover, that you would give yourself to them completely, at least for as long as that marriage lasts. Never counting what you received, and only worrying that at the end of the day, you gave more than them  – if possible.

Or, you can stay unmarried, and keep that relationship going on the play of run and chase that we all love although we do feel it’s draining sometimes. “Love you, love you not” play with it, make it a competition, “you’ll never catch me, you’ll never tame me, you’ll never really have me” but when you fall into their arms, they know that for that moment, they have you, you are theirs and theirs alone, and there is nowhere you’d rather be… And at the same time, you give yourself to them fully, every day, every moment, but you just don’t let them know it or count on it – and every day you give them love you know they know it’s theirs, for no other reason that you truly love them and not because once when you were young and naive you said “I do” and now you’re stuck with that promise.

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