Longevity & Monogamy

It's interesting that I would start to write about monogamy right after I came back from the ASD/AMD expo in Vegas.  Actually, interesting maybe not...I guess it's no surprise since I am a one woman man.

One thing I do want know is that with my days counting down [in a good way wifey dear], I am wondering, curious even, what other people think about when getting married.  I look at vow templates and think, "Wow, this is pretty intense." Do people know what they are getting themselves into?  Many of us say "To death to us part."  Which, if I may be so blunt and straight forward about it means, not abandoning your wife or husband, unless of coarse, you are dead.


Furthermore, I have enough faith in you, my readies, and even for the still very general population of our country, that people don't walk into a marriage and think, "I can't wait to have an affair"  "I can't wait to cheat on him."  So my question is, why do people do it?

The most common reason for filing a divorce is "Irretrievable breakdown of the marriage" Which translate as a no-fault divorce. [irreconcilable differences]  While much of the reason why this is often used for filing divorce is that it's much much easier to file than say...a divorce filed on the grounds of adultery or abuse, it's unfortunate that irreconcilable differences is the reason people don't love each other in this day and age.

Perhaps it is a shocker to us that we marry completely different people from the people we fell in love with and that is the reason we come across irreconcilable differences, but when we really look at core issues of failing marriages outside of adultery, abuse, and addiction, I wonder what we'd find.  To me, being an admitting naive idealist, seeing actual examples of irreconcilable differences would probably be baffling, and perhaps even ridiculous.

One thing that I do admit however; is the dynamic of that which is in marriage, and that which is in the dating realm.  I've recently been experiencing this with my lovely bride-to-be of seven years.  I was reminiscing the past and how I use to write love letters and poems for my dear wife [to be] Taking her out to dinner was the highlight of my weeks, and we could talk on the phone for hours and hours ...and hours...and hours.  Somewhere though, down the road, I lost that sense of romancing my wife [to be] and I guess, she kind of settled into it as well.  Our purpose for our relationship subtly changed from expressing love to each other, to tolerating each other each day, to just getting by together.

What I'm really contemplating, is that in marriage, I anticipate lots of "get-things-done" times.  At first we'll try to accomplish things together, because we're a couple, a team.  Then after a while one of us will make a small mistake, a big mistake maybe.  Then we both will agree that we should just do things separately and occasionally together, until the only things we do together are raise children, eat dinner [maybe] and sex [maybe].  You may deny it and say that this little paragraph doesn't describe you or anyone you know, but the sad fact is, I see this all the time in many marriages slowly falling apart.

In a marriage, I think that too often we get caught up in all the bills to pay, all the parties we are obligated to appear to, all the careers we're trying to pursue, that we lost the pursuit of each other.  The real reason we fell in love with that person and stayed in love with that person isn't because we payed the bills, or took the children to school, or did a to-do list or whatever, it was because we  went out to the park to have a picnic [that we prepared for for 4 hours but didn't mind] or had a beautiful conversation next to the fountain down at the park, or watched a movie with, or had dinner with.  That's why we fell in love with them.

I'm not saying that you can't get things done together, or that paying bills or taking care of kids is a bad thing.  But often times, it's the little things that we settle into that will poison us to death.  People are constantly changing all the time, we all do.  But if you stop getting to know your spouse, you'll end up just living with a stranger.  [Maybe it's room mate syndrome  Boy do I know what that feels like.]

Irreconcilable differences will sneak up on you if you let it.  When you tell yourself you married someone completely different from the person you dated, think first to yourself that you actually took some time to get to know the person you dated.  Have you taken time recently to know the person you married?

Spend some time this week and act like your wife is your girlfriend. [remember Monogamy is still in affect]  And do something nice for her.

After all this, I still know that there are a lot of things ahead that I'm not aware of in marriage, and again maybe it's the idealist in me speaking of the silliness of reality.  So I do want to know.  Maybe this blog will reach some of you guys in the midst of marriage.  How are you holding up?  I'd really like to know , those of you who have been married for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years even.  How do you keep up the hot monogamy?  How do you fall in love with your wife every single day you wake up in the morning?  Leave tips and comments for me below :]  Thanks for reading, readies.