The Good Marriage
Amor vincit omnia.
Love conquers all.
The good marriage. Is it possible? Do you want it? Do you want to keep it? These are the ways.
Love does conquer all. But, it is not that romantic surge of love, which is sufficient, but rather the love that draws things and people rightly together.
The good marriage requires that each recognize how difficult it is for two people to live together in the first place. Each of the loving pair (even the not-so-loving pair) comes from a different background. Genetically they are different. In terms of background and expectations, they are different. In their thinking styles; in their love styles; in their desire styles, they are different. In fact, it is sometimes a miracle that two people can live together for a long time and still remain bound to each other in a most fortunate way. To tell the truth, I am one of a pair of them. We have been married for a very long time. And despite the difficulties (which were difficult difficulties at the time, I must say), we have not only survived but we have grown together. In fact, love, like vines, grows between people, given mutual tolerance, mutual charity, and mutual respect.
People do grow together. But first:
In order to overcome difficulties, it is important for each of the pair, each at the time, to stop being the self-convinced one. We all see the world through the eyes of our own assumptions, expecting other people to think and feel and see things the way we do. That is far from true. So the first step is to suspend your assumptions, stop being yourself, and join with the other person, almost fuse, and feel the other person’s opinion and point of view for a time. This requires a contract that one will talk at a time while the other listens and then expect the same from the other. You will find that this is a new way. The ordinary way is for each person to be hurt or angry or whatever else and retreat behind a wall into his/her own assumptions and sense of righteousness. The wall grows and the other person retreats even further into his/her sense of righteousness and so it goes. This creates conflicts, even wars between nations, let alone between people.
If you practice this, you will grow not only toward the good marriage, the lasting marriage, the most rewarding marriage but you will be growing yourself into a point where you become stronger in terms of your emotions, more patient, more wise because you will know yourself and the other person. You will also know people around you. This is a great reward.
To summarize:
- Make a contract that each will listen to the other, one at a time.
- Stop being yourself for a moment. Become your partner.
- Expect the same of him/her.
- With this new understanding, have a dialogue in which you begin to not only understand each other but reach a really satisfactory point of view.
- Realize that in this you are growing your own self in terms of personal strength
