Marriage (Part 3), 8-27-2010

 [Continued from Marriage (Part 2), 8-27-2010. sch 3/14/23]

I warn you that anyone can play with marriage's form. Prenuptial agreements demonstrate that fact. Do not think you can mess with its substance.

About that substance, I suggest no quick marriages. A long engagement and I would not have an ex-wife. Beware when either party demands marriage by a certain date that is nearby on the calendar.

One more point I will repeat is this: communicate even if it hurts. It costs less than a divorce. Communications must exist for a relationship to grow. Underlying that communication must be a tolerance for what needs to be and within that tolerance a mutual trust. Consider Shakespeare's Sonnet 120:

That you were once unkind befriends me now,

And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,

Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you’ve passed a hell of time;

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.

O! that our night of woe might have remembered

My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered

The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!

But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

I did not trust enough in my wife, or in any other relationship. My first fiance would give me amnesty periodically ( avery good idea, by the way), but I was so ashamed by one particular transgression that I lied to her about the transgression. She discovered the lie and that ended that engagement.

Because I did not trust, I plunged ahead on my path of self-destruction. That left me a criminal, divorced and a moral leper. 

Will I marry again? No. I failed in my one attempt and I think 62 too old to try again. Also, I will have by then lived 12 years with men - I suspect a solitary existence will be delightful. Not that I ever really minded being alone. When I did cohabit with another it was to conform to the needs of others. Not everyone should get married and I see myself now as one who does better with visitors than anything more permanent. This assumes I will survive 12 years of prison. Time has come for me to acknowledge I am not a good enough partner for marriage or even cohabitation.

A memory came as I wrote that last paragraph of an idea from my first fiance. She thought we should live in separate houses with a cottage between where we would meet. I could do that. I would say that most people would do better with such living arrangements. Too bad I turned down Joni, who proposed a marriage very much like that. Oh, well, I promised no what-ifs and with that I shall close.

sch