Committment

  MyGuy and i have been married a LONG time, as you can see from the photo.
  And the wedding wasn't exactly storybook perfect.  i mean, what sort of crazy bride ASKS her bridesmaids to wear white?  And doesn't demand the groomsmen match?
  But i wanted "girls in white dresses in blue satin rayon sashes."  And no one imagined the whole church, not to mention all of my dad's huge family, would turn out to see my parents' daughter married, so obviously it would be a small wedding, which no one would see, so it wouldn't matter what anyone wore.

  But weddings, though you never forget your own, only last a few hours.
  How long the marriage lasts is another matter.
  This post is not about condemning anyone who has not made it to the long time.  Heck, i once  thought i'd never make it to six weeks married, to ten years married.
   i know people who have been through worse and kept each other.  i know people who have not encountered, seemingly, nearly as many difficulties and yet lost each other.
  i've read statistics that, of couples surveyed five years previously, the happiest today are the ones who were most miserable then and stayed together.  My own informal surveys bear this out.  Except for the widow who was abused, the ones who stayed together tell me it was more than worth the effort.

  i am convinced that for every long, happy marriage there are many divorces, or even murders, that could have taken place.  And by that i mean within that one marriage.

  If i were sitting shoulder to shoulder with you i would share some of the difficulties we've been through. Since i'm not, you may want to find someone else to share with, either your own experiences "making it to here," or finding out that that person's path hasn't been as smooth as it looks.
   One thing that helped me was listening to that hick Bible preacher when he was teaching Malachi 3, about marriage.  He said that a woman's submitting is more about a woman's responding, not about being a doormat.
  If you prefer to not think about it Scripturally, think doing the relationship mindfully, being friends, respecting & paying attention to each other.
  i realized that i hadn't been responding to MyGuy.
  And i realized that "for better or for worse" was, maybe not entirely, but, in large part, up to me.