As I announced here just under a year ago, I’m engaged to be married this coming Friday (July 22nd). In the months leading up to the proposal, I did a lot of thinking about what it means to be married. In the last year, my fiance and I have also spoken about the meaning of our upcoming commitment. I thought I would share a bit of the rationale for why I decided to get married.
What makes marriage such a daunting choice is its permanence. Divorce rates aside, you are making a commitment for the rest of your life. Forever.
One thing we wondered was, can we truly understand a permanent commitment? “Forever” is really just an abstract thought that I’m not sure we can ever truly understand – even when limited by our own lifespan.
Does the current “version” of yourself really have the capacity (or even the right) to make a commitment that the “you” in 10 years, 20 year, hopefully 50 years, will be held to?
I finally came to grips with this paradox (how can you make a commitment for a longer term than you’ve even been alive or can understand) when I realized that this is the very essence of marriage. This is exactly why marriage is important.
In addition to being an act of love, commitment, and hard work, marriage is an act of faith. I am making a commitment greater than I can truly understand. Rather than rendering the commitment hollow, though, the true and honest intention to uphold such an unfathomable commitment is what elevates it from the realm of legal matters to the realm of the spiritual and sacred.
Oh, and the gifts, dancing, and a honeymoon are cool too.
I got married 3 days after I turned 18. I’m 22 now and I can say that (so far) it’s been the best time of my life. I remember that I was surprised at how much I enjoyed matramony. Simple things that I didn’t anticipate like always having a person to talk to or sleeping next to someone at night were wonderful.
It’s great to hear someone take marriage so seriously. It’s a serious thing and yep, an act of faith.
Well, I never caught that announcement, so I’ll say congrats now. I have many friends getting married (and some already married), which, to tell you the truth, has thrown a lot of my other non-married into a trance. I went to a wedding this past weekend, going to another this weekend, had one last month, and will have one in september, and even know of another loose friend who is having one in november. You can imagine what this does the minds of unsuspecting, nearly fully adults (I’m 22).
plus guilt free sex rules.
anyway…i’m goin on my 3rd year as a hitched man, and all I can say is that you gotta take it a day at a time.
When you wake up in the morning each ask yourselves “What can I do to make their day better?” and you can’t go wrong.
One appreciable difference between being married and “having a girl/boy-friend” is this: when things get tough — and they will at some point or another — you have this moral “contract” with your significant other to solve your problems together intelligently. Without it, you can always decide that you’ve add enough and that you give up. But by being married you have this additional bound which protects you, individually and as part of a couple, from making stupid or rash decisions.
While this might sound terribly unromantic and not like something you might want to read just a couple of days before your wedding, it is in fact an important and comforting truth.
I wish you both a lot of happiness.
Steven, you are wise before your years. Not that someone your age can’t know this, it’s just odd to see other people believing in marriage when so many don’t. After 22 years of being married I can tell you one thing for sure, marriage is an act of faith. No one can know the outcome but can only uphold what they believe to be true. That marriage is spiritual and sacred are truths of mine as well and in my view there is no better avenue for personal growth.
Best wishes, Cyn
marriage is an act of faith
And there was me thinking it was an act of volition !
Anyway, good luck and have a great day (+life).
Congrats Steven!
As your older and married brother i could not be happier for you that you have found someone to love for the rest of your life. I have been married for eaxctly 686 days, that is 22 months or 1 year 10 months and 16 days. This has been the best time my life!!! i have never been happier and i cannot wait for each day to arrive so that i get to spend it with my perfect bride. way to go Steven and i wish you all the happiness that i have.
Totally a good move, God bless you both.
You’ll enjoy a song called Hold it up to the light, by David Wilcox. It’s funny, and talks about the Faith issue. It’s a good song.
Been married 2 and half years myself. It’s a great step.
Wishing you both the very very best! You deserve it!
We’ll be thinking about you tomorrow night, wishing we were there…
Congratulations! I wish very best for you and your fiance.
I am so bummer over you not blogging the wedding real time.
I have the feeling a real-time blogging of your own wedding might get you a devorce…
And anyway, what would it be like?
11.32 Groom comes up. Looks spiffy.
11.45 Still no Bride seen. Search party formed.
11.50 Bride was just on the loo. Ceremony underway.
12.00 Phew that was quick (vegas afterall). Both said yes, will blog more later on the meaning of this.
Plus some cell phone photos, audio clips of the bride saying “what the hell do you think you are doing, Steven!” – that sort of thing.
Congratulations on starting the BEST years of your life. I’ve been married almost 25 years and have zero regrets. Songwriter Larry Norman really summed it up in “Somewhere Out There”:
“‘Cause the best gifts in life are kids and a wife”
“Forever” lasted 6 years the first time. I am now engaged again, however. I think things will be different the second time around. At least I sure hope so.
congratulations…
i read your blog from time to time
and always find it interesting…
i think actually i used to work with your mom
once apon a time
at a store named coles…
she’d remember me
i was cute annoying one that once boiled french fries
cause i thought thats how you deep fried them
heehee
again congratulations
and best of luck
🙂
Hear, hear! Too many people jump into marriage without this sort of understanding of what kind of commitment they should be making. They do it just because they think that society (or their parents, or whatever) expects it, or something.
My wife and I didn’t do any dancing at our wedding. In fact, we spent so much time visiting with all our guests at the reception, that we never even got to eat any of our food (except for our one piece of wedding cake). We also didn’t get many gifts, but that was by choice (we asked our guests to give us their favorite family recipes, which we’ll eventually get around to organizing into our own family cookbook). And we still haven’t had a honeymoon yet (we’ll get around to it one day). But I don’t think I’d change a thing.
Congrats, and good luck to you both!
We have been married 35 years on Aug 1 2005 and we are both our best friends
and we are in love
i do not remember ever really trying hard to “make it work” guess its been a pretty easy gig we are lucky
peace
dance like there is no one watching
I think a big part of being happy is being kind and nice to each other- flowers for no occasion, special meals, cream on the tooties, compliments etc- they make each day such a happy place to be, Love, Mom
Congrats, Steven. I wish you the best with your marriage and I hope that you and the lucky lady will spend many awesome years together.
Regards and good luck!
Hey Steve,
Congrats on the wedding. Wish you both all the best.
Sorry not to post this sooner.
Congratulations to you and your bride Steven! I am very pleased that you are truly, entirely committed to marriage and that you have scoped out the spiritual view of marriage and have embraced it. I wish you all the happiness in the world, you will make a wonderful husband for this lucky woman.
“Cream on the tooties”
Wiser words never were spoken
A belated congratulations, Stephen, and all the best for the future. I married my best friend and in almost two decades of being together I have come to realize that a life partner can help you navigate anything that comes your way.
I married at the age of 26 and divorced at the age of 37. I met someone new who would love to marry me. She is great for me! I can’t get rid of the bad taste in my mouth from divorce though! I do however have a deeper understanding of what a relationship is though.I love your mom’s advice! It has helped me FOR TODAY! Peace and good luck,Marcel
I just want to say thanks for helping me understand marriage a little more. I am engaged and starting to make wedding plans. I needed to understand that the committment level changes from girlfriend to wife. In those words its perfect.
Thanks,
I hope you have many happy years together.
Carrol
I got married the day after you. So far so good… hope all is going great for you too!
i love the way you speak your mind, i’m also engaged i’m 26 y.o. and i need your work to be able to explaine to my grandparents and relatives well and good enough and make them understand why i’ve decided to get married. i’m not that good at explaining things like this so can i borrow your words of wisdom Mr. Steven sir? thanks. God bless!
It’s a funny thing. What’s in a piece of paper? A vow can be made without a religious or legal contract.
But the thing about marriage is that it’s a public affirmation that you’re connected, that you’re family.
My husband and I were together for seven years before we decided to get married, and the clincher for me was that I considered him my next of kin, the person closest to my heart. I wanted him to have that status legally.
Before we were married, I called him my partner, but he wouldn’t have inherited my possesions if I died, he wouldn’t have been the one called if I was an accident. As my husband, he IS my next of kin. He is the person I go through life with. We made no vows of forever, we can’t know what forever may hold, but we pledged monogamy and we pledged respect – whatever the future holds.
Best wishes for you and your bride.
My wedding day is Nov 19th. I can not wait! It is a funny way how things really do work out in life. The only way that my bride to be was given to me is by FAITH. It was what we call an arranged marriage. Her dad, which is a client of mine, had seen enough in me that he said call my daughter. I have never regreted a day since. Giving up cars, some of what I used to consider friends and other meaningless “stuff”. I knew 22 minutes after I met her that she was the one. It is even more ironic that she is a teacher, I was the worst and craziest student ever. Everyone keep posting advice. I am sure I will make a lot of dumb mistakes, and so will she but she will get way with them.
I will write more if anyone wants the full scope of everything and how all this has came to be.
Daniel