I can honestly say that I don't know much about the drama that has been talked about on the news for the last week or so. I really don't care much about your personal life. You'd imagine that the culture which uses the battle cry of "what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their room is their business" would remove its nose from what you did in the privacy of yours. Instead though, your life seems to have dominated the news over other more important issues such as our economy, the war in Afghanistan, the threat of radical Islam, and the Copenhagen meetings in light of the leaked emails on global warming.
That's not what I care to voice my opinion on, though. You see, the other day I was in the bathroom at work and on the television they were playing a quote from you that I find extremely troubling. Yes, I have televisions in the bathroom where I work. They're good for the sentence "I have televisions in the bathroom where I work" and giving me something to stare at for twenty seconds at a time, but not much else. I've looked all over the internet for the quote to get it in its full context and to make sure it was even from you, but I cannot find it anywhere so if I have misquoted you then I apologize.
You appeared to be talking about where you and your wife go from here, and thus you had to look at the question of what a marriage is. Marriage, you said, is not about the children, or the mortgage, or anything else, but marriage is ultimately about two people who love each other. This, I think, is completely wrong as love cannot be the sine qua non of marriage.
I've never been married so I can really only comment from the perspective of an outsider looking in, but hopefully certain principles apply regardless of my relation to the experience at hand. I've often heard people speak of their former marriages falling apart because they just weren't happy, or they fell out of love. And to that I usually reply, "so?" Like, I really like Twizzlers and I could easily eat an entire bag before realizing it, but after awhile I can't stand them anymore. If someone came up to me with a bag of Twizzlers at that point I'd probably respond by throwing up all over their shoes. My love and happiness for Twizzlers comes and goes with my current disposition. I suppose if I was a creature of infinite proportion that I could constantly handle a mouthful of Twizzlers, but I'm not God, and so sooner or later my love and happiness when it comes to Twizzlers is going to die off until an unknown time in the future.
Love, you see, cannot be what makes a marriage, as love for another can come and go. If love is the essence of marriage the moment I "fell out of love" (that is, no longer feeling the love), then I'd also be saying that I was no longer married to them. That appears to be absurd; there must be something more to marriage than love and happiness. I've tried having a relationship with a bag of Twizzlers, but things just didn't work out. One night I came home to a half-eaten bag laying on my desk and I knew it could tell that I had been out enjoying some Sour Patch Kids earlier. I tried to explain that I was just currently not in love and thus the marriage was temporarily suspended for the moment--no unfaithfulness had taken place. The Twizzlers didn't buy it, no matter how much I explained that I was indeed back in love with it again.
The Twizzlers were right, and so we get a clue to what marriage might be about: commitment. You know, those vow thingies we take. It's hard to keep them though, because my love for other candy can be pretty strong at times, but if I stick to that commitment, then regardless of my current love for Twizzlers there's never an excuse to end the relationship. It doesn't matter how sick they make me, or how miserable I can be at times, the vows override my current feelings.
But I guess we still aren't finished. The commitment seems to be missing something. I love my Twizzlers, but that doesn't make it a marriage. Twizzlers make me happy, but that doesn't make it a marriage. And I could be committed to my Twizzlers, but wouldn't seem to be grounds for a marriage either. Indeed, I have several female friends that I love, enjoy being around, and have a commitment to be the best to them that I can, but none of those things equate to a marriage. [Homosexual activists take note here: if you want to make a case for homosexual marriage that rises above pure arbitrariness then you're going to have to ground it in something above love, happiness, and commitment.]
Thus we come to what marriage is all about: God. You know, that big guy upstairs who created, designed, and sustains everything that exists. In marriage there is a bond between two people which takes place that only God can take apart. Once upon a time man was split into two, and when he took on a wife, he became whole again. It's like the awesome story of two twins being born, and then a pendant is split into two and each given a half. The twins are then separated until the day they meet again and open up some secret temple full of awesomeness by rejoining the two halves of their pendant.
Of course, seeing as that I have not yet found my long-lost twin or a wife, I cannot speak on what that awesomeness might be; but I am rather sure that it's an awesomeness that should never, or rather cannot, be destroyed by falling out of love or happiness.
This is not to say that marriage should not include happiness or love, but that those things seem to be something that have to be worked towards once grounded in the commitment placed in God's covenant. Of course this might explain what led you to cheat to begin with. You've been lied to, as we all have. We've come to believe that love and happiness are just supposed to happen and continue off into the sunset, but unless you happen to be God, then such things will never come naturally for creatures such as us. What will come naturally is the tendency and desire to find that happiness anywhere we can. I'm sure you have your fair share to choose from as a source of happiness, but may I suggest that there's only one correct choice to make.
Understandably,
A man after your own heart.
That's not what I care to voice my opinion on, though. You see, the other day I was in the bathroom at work and on the television they were playing a quote from you that I find extremely troubling. Yes, I have televisions in the bathroom where I work. They're good for the sentence "I have televisions in the bathroom where I work" and giving me something to stare at for twenty seconds at a time, but not much else. I've looked all over the internet for the quote to get it in its full context and to make sure it was even from you, but I cannot find it anywhere so if I have misquoted you then I apologize.
You appeared to be talking about where you and your wife go from here, and thus you had to look at the question of what a marriage is. Marriage, you said, is not about the children, or the mortgage, or anything else, but marriage is ultimately about two people who love each other. This, I think, is completely wrong as love cannot be the sine qua non of marriage.
I've never been married so I can really only comment from the perspective of an outsider looking in, but hopefully certain principles apply regardless of my relation to the experience at hand. I've often heard people speak of their former marriages falling apart because they just weren't happy, or they fell out of love. And to that I usually reply, "so?" Like, I really like Twizzlers and I could easily eat an entire bag before realizing it, but after awhile I can't stand them anymore. If someone came up to me with a bag of Twizzlers at that point I'd probably respond by throwing up all over their shoes. My love and happiness for Twizzlers comes and goes with my current disposition. I suppose if I was a creature of infinite proportion that I could constantly handle a mouthful of Twizzlers, but I'm not God, and so sooner or later my love and happiness when it comes to Twizzlers is going to die off until an unknown time in the future.
Love, you see, cannot be what makes a marriage, as love for another can come and go. If love is the essence of marriage the moment I "fell out of love" (that is, no longer feeling the love), then I'd also be saying that I was no longer married to them. That appears to be absurd; there must be something more to marriage than love and happiness. I've tried having a relationship with a bag of Twizzlers, but things just didn't work out. One night I came home to a half-eaten bag laying on my desk and I knew it could tell that I had been out enjoying some Sour Patch Kids earlier. I tried to explain that I was just currently not in love and thus the marriage was temporarily suspended for the moment--no unfaithfulness had taken place. The Twizzlers didn't buy it, no matter how much I explained that I was indeed back in love with it again.
The Twizzlers were right, and so we get a clue to what marriage might be about: commitment. You know, those vow thingies we take. It's hard to keep them though, because my love for other candy can be pretty strong at times, but if I stick to that commitment, then regardless of my current love for Twizzlers there's never an excuse to end the relationship. It doesn't matter how sick they make me, or how miserable I can be at times, the vows override my current feelings.
But I guess we still aren't finished. The commitment seems to be missing something. I love my Twizzlers, but that doesn't make it a marriage. Twizzlers make me happy, but that doesn't make it a marriage. And I could be committed to my Twizzlers, but wouldn't seem to be grounds for a marriage either. Indeed, I have several female friends that I love, enjoy being around, and have a commitment to be the best to them that I can, but none of those things equate to a marriage. [Homosexual activists take note here: if you want to make a case for homosexual marriage that rises above pure arbitrariness then you're going to have to ground it in something above love, happiness, and commitment.]
Thus we come to what marriage is all about: God. You know, that big guy upstairs who created, designed, and sustains everything that exists. In marriage there is a bond between two people which takes place that only God can take apart. Once upon a time man was split into two, and when he took on a wife, he became whole again. It's like the awesome story of two twins being born, and then a pendant is split into two and each given a half. The twins are then separated until the day they meet again and open up some secret temple full of awesomeness by rejoining the two halves of their pendant.
Of course, seeing as that I have not yet found my long-lost twin or a wife, I cannot speak on what that awesomeness might be; but I am rather sure that it's an awesomeness that should never, or rather cannot, be destroyed by falling out of love or happiness.
This is not to say that marriage should not include happiness or love, but that those things seem to be something that have to be worked towards once grounded in the commitment placed in God's covenant. Of course this might explain what led you to cheat to begin with. You've been lied to, as we all have. We've come to believe that love and happiness are just supposed to happen and continue off into the sunset, but unless you happen to be God, then such things will never come naturally for creatures such as us. What will come naturally is the tendency and desire to find that happiness anywhere we can. I'm sure you have your fair share to choose from as a source of happiness, but may I suggest that there's only one correct choice to make.
Understandably,
A man after your own heart.
2 comments:
I like and agree w/ most of this. My only qualm is the comparing marriage with an inanimate object like candy. I think it's a little bigger than that. But point well put nonetheless.
PS - I still hate you.
Philosophically speaking, if you want to show that something isn't sufficient for something else, then you merely need to demonstrate that one can exist without the other. Oxygen might be needed for fire, but it is not enough in and of itself to produce fire. More is needed. Thus, if my love for Twizzlers or my wife were to disappear, I do not believe it would be grounds for divorce or infidelity seeing as that I do not believe love is what makes a marriage.
PS - Is that like the schoolyard "I hate you" where you really mean you love me?
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