 |
| Let the Change Begin |
Marriage is all about change. Change is not something to be feared and/or avoided. Rather, it is something to be anticipated, embraced, and used for our own good. Marriage is about embracing change and using it for the common good of the union. Marriage was ordained to increase us, to help us do more and mature. You cannot be in a healthy marriage relationship and refuse to change. "After marriage, all things change. And one of them better be you." (Elizabeth Hawes)
A healthy and enduring marriage relationship is a journey of change and adjustments by the parties involved, as they study and get to know each other for one or both parties not wanting to change spells doom for the relationship. It means one or both parties will not be happy or fulfilled in the relationship. However, the expectation of change seems to vary based on sex. "The tragedy of marriage is that while all women marry thinking that their man will change, all men marry believing their wife will never change." (Len Deighton)
Taking a Walk:
Marriage is analogous to two persons going for a walk. For them to walk together and not leave the other behind, they both have to walk at a new speed. This new speed is different from the speed of either of them. It is some new speed that suits their interaction, while they walk with a sense of commonality, enjoying each other’s company. They are sacrificing, as it were, their own individual way of walking for the common good, the company, the communion, the oneness. By the same token, "When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship." (Joseph Campbell)
Taking a Walk:
Imagine if one person decides not to change and forces the other to walk at his or her pace. The one having to adjust sure will not be a happy camper. And, will not be free to fully yield his or her best. Rather than being renewed by the relationship, the oppressed feels used, drained, and abused. The abuser, on the other hand, is depriving (shortchanging) him or herself of the treasure in his or her partner that is meant to increase and bless him or her. It is not a working partnership. In fact, it is not one at all. It behooves the two to call each other to order and make the necessary changes to get back on the path of life, the path of marriage.
Marriage Pushes the Initiative:
None of us has arrived. We are each on a journey of perfection. That is one of the pivotal intents of marriage. It is to disturb our comfort zone so that we can learn, we can grow, and develop - we can mature. It is to intrude on our privacy and our hypocrisies with the intent of unmasking us. It is to open the wounds we have hitherto given artificial coverings to and cause them to be on the path of true healing.
That is what a healthy marriage does to you. A marriage that makes you comfortable in who you are, and does not force you to grow, change, to mature to a better version of yourself, is no marriage at all. You are into something other than marriage. For, marriage forces you to grow, to change, to mature, to become.
© 2015 Akin Akinbodunse
Links to Related Articles:
Two Human Beings in a Marriage:
Tolerance: The Secret of a Happy Married Life (Part One)
Links to Other Resources:
Rules for Marriage (Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider
No comments:
Post a Comment