Jacquie and also her partner-in-crime Stingray have some exquisitely beautiful things to say about relationships/marriage.
NC showed his displeasure at the fact that not many people ahd bothered to tackle Danny's question in Bellita's brilliant post 'Manhaters': 'why should a man bother get married nowadays'?
Some of us took the bait and tried to appease NC. I think NC was satisfied with our efforts :-)
JV stole the show as usual (um, is there no end to JV's talents? lol).
I post here her comment in its entirety because it would seem a travesty to leave something out:
But Belita's Rocky analagy puts words into something that I couldn't put my finger on. You grow as a person. But you also grow as a soul.
There is a range of experience that comes from marriage. And not all of it is sunshine and rainbows. A lot of that growth comes from sacrifice. Not a popular concept in this day and age. But, there's a depth and range that comes from feeling, experiencing,examining and asking the big questions. And living through it.
You can experience love and intimacy without commitment. But there's an added dimension, a quality that requires you to think and feel outside of the box when you can't just walk away when things are difficult. And there's a wonderful dimension to being someones ideal, and being with your ideal.
There's no better feeling in the world than being in love and the two of you being on the same page, growing, and both trying to be the best possible people that you can be.
I know I am not the only one who felt the power of these words.
To me, marriage is still an abstract concept. And it will remain so until I say 'I do'.
I have no expertise in this subject. So anything I say about it is theoretical.
Bellita's response to JV's words is exactly the right attitude to have to such powerful words:
It takes one who has lived it to describe it properly. While I still see it "through a glass darkly," you have seen it "face to face."
This is precisely why I think JV's words are so powerful. She has lived it. No guesswork here...
I don't usually get to spend time with my married friends. It is usually because they are too busy. And much as I would like to get closer to them and learn stuff from them, it would seem churlish (not to talk of selfish) to add to their list of priorities (their marriage commitment to each other, kids, work, running a household, etc.) by imposing myself on them.
But occasionally, I get a 'free gift' as they say. (By the way, I find this term highly amusing as a gift is supposed to be free anyway...)
But I digress...
One of my friends has been married. For ten whole years.
She is a wonderful woman. As Red Pill as it gets. Very feminine (inside and out), she is a hard worker and definitely what I would call a 'masculine woman' of the type we describe here.
I vaguely knew she is divorced. But I was never curious about that.
Then one day, out of the blue, she told me more about herself than I expected.
In one unforgettable sitting I learned so much I am still reeling from the lesson.
She married young. For ten years she had a blissful marriage, according to her own estimation. Then after one catastrophic event in her marriage she divorced her husband in what she thought would be a swift and painless end to her pain.
But no. Instead, it took her close to ten years to finally get over this episode in her life.
This woman had plenty to be bitter about. But she is not.
From what she told me, I tried to work out why not.
Knowing her character, I think I know why now.
She says she prefers now to see her ex-husband as he once was before that catastrophic event in their life together.
She prays for him everyday.
She wishes him well.
She didn't say this, but I got the sense that she wishes she could turn back the clock. (Even though she is now with a great guy she adores).
I KNOW that she would have done things differently if all that stuff happened now.
I think (guesswork from me) that one realisation makes her the epitome of human strength that she is:
Horrendous as things were with her ex-husband, I think she realises that she was lured into the divorce-court by the hype built up by the divorce industry.
Crucial to understanding my logic here is that she is very Catholic (yes, Capital C) and never actually wanted the divorce she instigated. But quite apart from the fact that she wanted to punish her ex-husband to some degree, (which is entirely normal given what happened), she did not take the allocated 'cool-down' period she so desperately needed and which was freely available to her.
She (much to her chagrin now) accepted the 'low-hanging fruit' that divorce has become for a lot of women.
Unfortunately, the unintended consequences of that is that all of a sudden, she had become the 'bad guy' when it was her ex-husband who deserved to be labelled as such.
She told me that despite what he had done, he blamed her for the divorce (simply because she had irreversibly set it in motion).
If for one second, I step into his shoes, I imagine this is what he might have thought at the time:
"So....when I was a good boy for 10 years, it was all good with the missus. The minute I put a foot wrong I was rather unceremoniously and unbelievably harshly dealt with..."
Gentlemen, is any of this familiar to you?
What's weird is that I could 'see' all of this by simply studying her face when she was telling me her story. So I know that she too could see his point of view now, after many years of reflection.
Some women, I think, never arrive at the point of introspection that my friend achieved in regaining her life after her divorce.
This I find is a major difference between women like her and those who are bitter.
My friend achieved the impossible. I take my hat off to her. And I know that whatever happens in her life from now on, she will be OK.
In the course of one evening I suddenly realised that bad things really do happen to good people...
But what else did I learn from her?
Because the laws governing divorce and child custody are the way they are, indivuduals who want a lifelong marriage really do need their own system of maintaing the high standards they have set up in life.
How?
I found a nice analogy with 'careers'.
Some careers are a lifelong commitment, just like marriage.
A dentist friend of mine once did a brilliant 'compare and contrast' between doctors and dentists. Apparently, dentists, on qualifying are 'good to go'. They can set themselves up in private practice almost immediately.
Apparently not so for doctors. A newly qualified doctor is like a fish out of water. He or she would need years more of specialisation to get to the point where they are 'independent'.
I think the same applies to lawyers, accountants, nurses, engineers and teachers, to name a few professisons.
All of these careers are conspicuous by their requirement for ongoing training.
In some of these, 'qualification' is simply an 'entry level' milestone. It takes years to get your 'exit level' landmark that can get you established in that profession.
No-one sees you as 'fully cooked' in that profession until you have got your 'exit level' qualification.
How does this pertain to marriage?
Amy helped me by saying something to the tune of 'you don't have to be 'fully fledged' as a wife on your wedding day. The marriage itself helps you to become a good wife'.
This helped me because I realise now that this is rephrasing exactly what The Catholic Church has been saying all along (but I wasn't paying attention lol until Bellita and Amy pointed it out like I am a 6 year old), which is ... marriage is one of the seven sacraments. It is a channel of grace.
I am acutely aware that my friend's marriage even though it failed, was very much a channel of grace for her. I know she knows this too.
And even though I feel I should be an expert before marriage to be attractive enough as a marriage partner in this day and age where the rule-book got thrown into the river, I also realise that I should perhaps chill out a little :-)
Where marriage is concerned, I really am a newly-qualified doctor as opposed to a newly-qualified dentist.
It helps me to see myself this way, because then I can see marriage as a way to grow and develop...
If the end-goal is the wedding day, then the marriage is in trouble.
Part of the problem why many marriages fail may be that (again this is a guess from someone who hasn't even achieved 'rookie' status!!) too many people see marriage as the 'exit' qualification and not the 'entry' qulaification.
The whole wedding industry is geared towards making brides see the big day as the former and not the latter.
It is time for potential brides to develop a new 'frame' for one of the most important days of their lives.
Because the old 'frame' is a dangerous one.
A really bad trap that even good women can fall into - like my friend did.
I really like how The Queen's jubilee celebrations get bigger and bigger every time...I can bet that the recent diamond jubilee celebrations were much bigger than the golden, which were much bigger than the silver...
Maybe young brides today will do well to look forward to 'bigger and bigger' celebrations of their marriage timelines. If they thought this way, they wouldn't pour all their efforts (and money!) into the wedding day, which is actually nothing but 'Time zero'.
Because they would be so keen to be saving up (emotionally, finacially, psychologically, etc) for Time 5, Time 10, Time 20 and so on...
If everything one has is given to Time zero, there is nothing left, physically and figuratively for Time 20...
Does this make sense?
If there are any runners among us, perhaps a switch to this as an analogy might help?
If a person thinks they are in a sprint, they will give their all for 100m or so and then stop.
But if they are 'psyched up' for a marathon then they are more likely to 'pace themselves', no?
So marriage should be thought of as a marathon, not a sprint.
It's not a 72 day affair, it's a lifetime affair.
Any excuse to post this man's picture...
And I still maintain I am NOT VISUAL!!!
:-)
(OK, who am I kidding lol)
:P
Well, it IS the Olympics afterall... :-)
