Sunday, December 14, 2008

To Jack and more on marriage...

http://adventuresinvoluntarysimplicity.blogspot.com/2008/12/on-marriage.html

Oh my dear blogger friend... you have many points that are fantastic and many points that have yet to be explored... I'm not an expert but yet I weigh strongly on this subject but I'm gonna go about it in a different direction...

What is marriage? In my opinion, it's a decision for life...

FIRST: First and foremost, I am a true believer that marriage is something to not be taken lightly. It is a vow to spend the rest of your life with someone, no matter what the cause, reason or belief, it is the one time you should not regret your choice.

It is the time for you to commit yourself to someone in all your power and being. Not to say you should become a PART of someone, but you should be a team, grounded by a mutual understanding and love for each other.

Therefore, much thought and discussion is usually vital to this action.... hence posts like this...

RELIGION: Different religions have very different beliefs. I too admire someone that can place their entire life into the hand of something unseen and a rule that plans their lives for them. It takes amazing courage to do so... and I truely believe that if you believe hard enough, you CAN find true love in your life path... I had a friend in college that was of a religious decent that still had pre-arranged marriages... I used to conversate with him about all the cons of this marriage and never fully understood it... then working as a nurse years later, I'm taking care of his children with his pre-arranged wife, and they actually seemed "normal". They were appropriate, had children, fulfilled their lifes purpose in their religion... maybe that gives them peace....

As for those of us who have yet to decide which religion is our religion, I tend to take a liberal view... I will marry under the house of God, however I won't decide my sect upon marrying... seems completely reasonable to me. I will NOT marry into the catholic church, for my reasons, and intelligent reasons... I WILL marry a catholic man who is liberal enough to love me and respect me as so... seems to me, love is the answer, not religion.....

LOVE: Romantic love is only the beginning. Romantic love is generally what gives you the feeling of attraction. With out it, you would just be friends....

Love to me is more then a feeling. It's everything. It's intimate and understanding. It's angry and jealous. It's powerful and yet blissful. It's something that you can't measure in words but in actions. Love is NOT feeling those butterfly's in your stomach on your first date. Love is not wanting to fuck someone after a fun night out on the town. Love is not simply a feeling of need or want. It's a feeling of belonging. It's the reason you get up in the morning. It's the person you kiss good night to at night and never dream of anyone else while sleeping. It's the person that you love so much you feel fear and fright if you think they would die before you. It's the thing that keeps you up at night with worry and frustration but it's the thing that is founded when they kiss you as they walk in the door. It's the one who complete's you mentally, phisycally, and sexually. That's not romantic. It's a connection. It's a feeling that CAN NOT be described in words alone. It should never be your everything but yet it IS your everything. It's looking at someone and knowing you can spend a significant amount of time with them... through the good and the bad...

Love is so subjective. It can not be defined, it can only be felt. And trust me, TRUST your feelings.

PAPER: yeah, it is just a piece of paper... but once upon a time in my life... that's what it came down to.

I loved Ryan but we didn't marry for 6 years. I too believed that there was no difference in us loving each other then the ones who went and got that little piece of paper to make it legal. I didn't care... until it came down to the time I should have cared... I screwed up. Looking back, would I have chosen a different path if I HAD that little piece of paper? Maybe? I know my actions would not have come so easily had I been married....

CHILDREN: Coming from above, would we have worked so hard to stay together if it weren't for little Zakari? Here come's growing up. Be mature. Be an adult. Ryan and I both screwed up a lot in our relationship.... but it boiled down to OUR life together. It came down to the child we had and the children we would have. He was the father of my child. He was the man who I chose to be my love and the father of my children. Yes, people can be good parents apart (John you are one of the most amazing I have met in this aspect) yet we chose to love each other, because we still had this feeling for each other, and also for our child(ren). I wanted my child to have a father and a mother, two beings that loved each other, that wanted a family.

LEGALLY/FINANCIALLY: I personally find it amazing that the government makes it so easy to find a better financial stand point in being single then it does in marriage. It's amazing that you take a tax cut if you marry with children then if you do being single with children. Not to say I "used" the governement in my years, but I am also pretty ok in the brains department, and money is a good thing if you're struggling to pay your bills... why do married couples get penalized more being together then a single mom? I'll never get it....

Another legal aspect to this point... when Ryan was dying, I was the one they waited for. I was the one who gave the DNR order, I was the one who turned off the life support. Two months earlier, and it wouldn't have been me, yet I was the one who had spent the last 7 years intimate with him.... there is something to be said about feeling your husbands last heartbeat as he passes from this world to the next, knowing it is your decision, and hoping it is the right desision.... I couldn't imagine not being legally a part of this decision if I loved someone.

FINALLY: Your life is what you make of it Jack. This post is to you and yet not for you. It's hopefully an insight to what married life could be like at some point in your life. I don't think you're ready by any means.... I never wonder where the beer went.... I look forward to the times John and I can have beers together and make fun of our day.... I look forward to goin out and getting hammered with him, watching football, broomball, soccer, whatever, but am completely satisfied that I got to spend that time with him and had a blast doing it. You don't have to have a white picket fence, 2 and 1/2 kids and a dog... you do whatever you want as a family.... Fudgesticks, I have 4 kids, a chain link fence, a rat looking dog, and a house that is not up to the Jone's standards by any means, and I'm happy as a pig in shit :-) I could never dream of wanting anything better... I don't need the football on sundays, the mom walks at the mall, the horrible mom jeans, the sex life where a man is lucky if he gets it once a week, the daily grind, the lunch boxes and morning TV.... And by the way, it's not blonds or brunettes, eventually, you will remember their faces and names.... and that'll mean something to you....

You've heard this before but when you love someone, it'll slap you in the face. It's that instant, and when you want to marry someone, you'll want to marry someone....

Really... after all I just blabbed about, it's THAT simple. You'll just know....

5 comments:

Jack said...

Wow. There is so much here. And all of it is true. I will say this: if I were to ever be that in love with someone marriage would always be an option. My point is that marriage doesn't have to be the only option. Although, from what you are describing, it might be the best one given what happened in the hospital and the challenges you endured in that relationship.

take care,

J

Anonymous said...

Dang....Whew.....Getum.....Love ya!!! :)

YanniFan said...

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Nina said...

The post Jack wrote had many thoughts stirring for me too. On MANY subjects, lol. I decided to just leave it alone because I couldnt formulate a coherent sentence, but it looks like you did :-)


(on another note- We will try to come get the fish this weekend. We've been sick with the crappiest GI bug I've ever had, for about a week! Finally feeling better. anyway- We will call you later!)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful..............

just beautiful said......

I'm divorce and I believe in Marriage........ (not jaded at all).

I did make a wrong choice; (long story) and the divorce was a necessity.. but I'm older and wiser now.

You are lucky you got to love someone like and to call him your husband..