|
Dear readers,
I know you might be
busy right now with your wedding preparations. But If you
can pause for a moment and take the time to read this insightful
piece on Partners and Marriage by Kent
Nerburn.
As marriage is a lifetime
commitment (especially here in the Philippines), read and
reflect on this article and make sure that you have made the
right decision, you have chosen the right partner. In the
words of the article’s author, “If you do, you
will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then
the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts.”
This article has been
popularly distributed over mailing lists and blogs, and unfortunately,
with false author attribution. Should you want to share or
forward this article to others, please follow our Terms
of Use Policy. Better yet, order a copy of “Letters
to My Son, A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Women, Life, and
Love.” This book is truly a treasure worth keeping in
your homes.
Regards,
Kasal.com team
Partners and Marriage
From the Book Letters to My Son, A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Women, Life, and Love
By: Kent Nerburn (Message
from the Author)
I have never met a man who
didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't
fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting,
not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what
it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within
our lives. When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I
did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married
for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just
because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then
I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and
petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older
couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other.
I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and
could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such
a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to
glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just
dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an
astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they
have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's
habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even
stay together, much less love each other? The central secret seems to be in
choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental
compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they
both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find
someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset.
Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
|
"Good
people
can create a
bad
relationship,
even though
they both dearly want the
relationship
to succeed." |
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and
colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you
to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually
survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this
initial overwhelming sexual fascination.
"The
truly lucky
people are the
ones who manage
to become
long-time friends
before they
realize they are
attracted to each
other." |
Some people choose
to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated
period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the
other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of
wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in
an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality.
But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled
sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having
any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time
friends before they realize they are attracted to each other.
They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and
fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best.
They share time together before they get swept into the entangling
intimacy of their sexuality. |
This is the ideal, but not often possible.
If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately,
you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.
One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you
will enjoy each other's company over the long term. If your
laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense
of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world.
Laughter is the child of surprise.
|
If you can make each other
laugh, you can always surprise each other.
And if you can
always surprise each other, you can always keep the world
around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is
no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only
on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing
a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you
against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your
relationship can become based on being critical together. |
"Beware
of a relationship
in which
there is no
laughter." |
After laughter, look for a partner who deals
with the world in a way you respect. When two people first
get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing
only in the space between the two of them. They find each
other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of
the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world.
"If
your partner
treats people or
circumstances in a way
you can't accept, you
will inevitably
come to grief." |
As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes
important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances
in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief.
Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily
affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love
will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect
the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually
the two of you will not respect each other. |
Look also at how your partner confronts the
mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality,
and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one
of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in
life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the
literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance
doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling
isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have
unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private
commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love
with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you
cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart
until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life but
never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is
only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that
leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
|
"If
you fall in love with someone
who cannot nourish those inviolable
parts of you, or if you cannot
nourish them in her, you
will find yourselves growing
further apart until you live
in separate worlds where you
share the business of life but never
touch each other where the
heart lives and dreams." |
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you
will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then
the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts.
I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I
think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage.
It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the
most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower.
The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and
love becomes a child. We never question these, because we
see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles,
though if we did not know them they would be impossible to
believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our
love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower.
We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be
sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully
and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly
or for the wrong reason, the bloom will flawed. We are quite
willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in
a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had
me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I
was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark
miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness.
"Marriage
is a
transformation
we choose
to make." |
Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first
heat of love could be transformed into something positive
that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat
of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of
this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left
with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation
as well. |
Like negative transformation, it results from
a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by
a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love.
Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate
presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share
a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate,
but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness,
not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This
is not to say that there is not tension and there are not
traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life,
from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers.
Each
choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road
not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes
dulled to the richness that it alone contains. But only marriage
allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge
that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those
who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of
shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage
commitment that deepens that experience into something richer
and more complex. |
"But
only marriage
allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened
by the knowledge that
two have chosen,
against all odds,
to become one." |
"If
you believe in your heart that you
have found someone with whom
you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that
you can resist the endless attraction of the road not
taken and the partner not chosen,
if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles
and seasons that
your love will experience, then
you may be ready to seek the
miracle that marriage offers." |
So do not fear marriage,
just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons.
It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power
of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have
found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have
sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction
of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have
the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that
your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the
miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy
grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When
the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly.
|
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A
Message from the Author:
Dear readers,
Thank
you for finding something of worth in the essay, "Partners
and Marriage." It was originally published in my book,
Letters to My Son -- a book of thoughts about life written
as a gift to my son, Nicholas. Over the years the thoughts
and essays have found their way around the world and
been taken to heart by many men and women in many countries.
I am honored that this has taken place. If you would
like to purchase an autographed copy of the book, please
contact sisters@wolfnordog.com.
We have them available and would love to share them
with you. Also, you may find out more about me and my
work by visiting kentnerburn.com
and wolfnordog.com.
My best to all of you, and may my words offer you some
guidance as you and your partner embark upon your life's
journey together. |
|
Kent
Nerburn
|
 |
