All Things Woompty

Oprah isn't always right

I had lunch with a friend this week and over the course of the meal, she admitted that she and her husband had been having some problems. She said she hadn't wanted to say anything to me because she didn't want to take off any of the happy shiny excitement about getting married that I've got. We ended up spending the rest of the meal discussing the fact that this marriage thing, it's hard.

My friend and her husband are one of the most stable couples I know. They've been married for 4 years now, and they've always been one of those couples that I've sort of "looked up to". The fact that they are currently in counseling together does nothing to lessen that opinion of mine. They well and truly love each other, but they're not blind enough to think that they can fix all of their problems by themselves. I know in my gut that they will work through this and end up stornger than ever.

I told her not to worry, that her marriage is her marriage, and that whatever's happening with them will not affect my own excitement. Besides, it's not like I'm in a happy fairy la-la-land where people get married and live happily ever after, forever and ever amen. Hey, I've read The Conscious Bride, I'm fully cognizant of the difficulties of marriage. I know there will be times when I want to throttle Kevin, and there will be times when he wants to drop kick me. And you know what? I have a feeling that someday we'll be the ones in counseling, because Goddess above, we have two boatloads of issues between us.

But as my friend said yesterday, you have to really, really be in love to get married, with the full intention of being together for the rest of your lives. You have to be prepared for the day when you start thinking about how easy it would be to pack up and leave, or the day when your spouse starts mentally figuring out how well they could survive on just their income. You have to be prepared and you have to be ready to fight for your marriage to survive.

And that's what it really comes down to. When I look at Kevin, I know that if and/or when that day comes, I will fight with everything I have to save our relationship. I will go to therapy, I will take time off from work, I will do whatever it takes. And I'm not afraid of doing that either, because I literally cannot imagine my life without him.

Oprah may not think that there is any need to get married, but I think this is the reason to get married. It's a way of standing up and declaring that you love someone so very much that you will twine your lives together legally and emotionally and publicly and you will do whatever it takes to keep yourself connected to this person.

I think our love deserves that.

posted by Melinda @ 5:06 PM