Pithy Thoughts About Marriage

We have been watching a seemingly inane television show about three couples who were paired using various types of matching software -- and then they got married on the day they met.  It is a five-week experiment and at the end they will have to decide if they want to remain married or get a divorce.

The show got lambasted by the critics and that almost kept me away, but then I thought about the sociological and psychological aspects of this and felt it might be interesting.  It is actually interesting.  The so-called experts meet with the couples at times, suggesting that they use question games with each other and try to open up to one another. The questions are usually very superficial and dumb.

What strikes me is how guarded these young people are, how deep their defenses are towards the opposite sex.  There is a deep lack of trust, and the cause of it in two cases appears to be something in their upbringing.  One young woman has had three lousy relationships by her own admission.  She comes from a terribly unreliable family, including an unreliable mother, and was uprooted a number of times ending up in a trailer park toward the end.  From just a rudimentary level, she was able to climb out of poverty, get a degree in nursing, and land a good, steady job working at night in a hospital.  But from a deep-seated place, she is so scarred and damaged that it is hard for her to overlook any small discretion committed by her husband -- even that he sneaked a cigarette and then lied about it.

The psychologist who worked with them over this occurrence never once asked her if maybe her need for absolute truth was nearly impossible, and maybe, just maybe he lied because he was so afraid of her reaction.  He's trying to be perfect and we all know how that usually works out.  For this young woman to ever achieve any sort of successful relationship, she has got to deal with her past and somehow put the pain behind her -- not end up lashing out at her husband for the hurts that others gave her.

The other young person who carries a lot of baggage is an EMS worker who will soon be getting into firefighting school.  He grew up without a dad and apparently things weren't always great with his mother.  Now his mother is terminally ill with lung cancer and he's trying to grapple with all of that.  He hid his feelings from his guy friends all his life, and he has a hard time confiding in his wife about his feelings.  She, however, shows a lot of maturity and patience with him and in the end, they will likely both come out of the experience stronger individually and as a couple.  These two might actually have the best chance of making it.

The third couple is on the rockiest ground of all.  While neither of them seem to have endured terrible hardship, they both lost their dads at a fairly young age.  While you'd think that would tend to unite them, it doesn't seem to carry much weight in their relationship.  The guy suggested a threesome on one occasion.  She was actually more upset with his use of the word "civil" when he talked about his behavior towards her than she was about the previous thing he said.  My opinion -- he seems to have a skewed view of women and has to some degree objectified them in his life.  She has an uphill battle with this guy.  He might not be husband material at this time.

What do I really think of this experiment?  It's terrible.  It's playing games with a sacrament.  It's making light of involving two strangers with each other for five weeks, and expecting somehow that the experts can make it all right.  There is this sense that it's okay -- they can just get a divorce if it doesn't work.

The one couple worries that once he starts firefighter school, things will change.  Things will ALWAYS change.  You can count on that.  Successful people learn to deal with the changes by taking them head-on.  They look at change as an opportunity to grow.  When we try to hide from change, we get ourselves in trouble.

The honest truth is that there are any number of couples getting married today that probably don't know each other much better than these three couples did at the altar.  Why?  That's a good discussion for another day. 

Just found out today that someone I really enjoyed at the University got a divorce and already has a new relationship.  It made me a little sad -- I attended his wedding.  I'm going to pray for him.

So today we wake up and start another day -- and again today I ask God to be with me, to guide me, and to help me.  Won't you do the same?  The one change I don't ever want to come to my life is losing my relationship with God.  For God has done great things for me; and I rejoice and am glad.