Marriage.

I just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s second book Committed: A skeptic makes peace with marriage. Some of you may remember her first book Eat, Pray, Love, and Hollywood decided that the book would make a good movie, so in a matter of months Eat, Pray, Love, starring the fabulous Julia Roberts, hits the theatres.

BOOK THOUGHTS…

So in the book, Gilbert interviews people from all over the world about their thoughts on marriage, and while in Vietnam she has the chance to meet and speak with Hmong women about marriage. Gilbert writes, “My friend the Hmong grandmother had never been taught to expect that her husband’s job was to make her abundantly happy. She had never been taught to expect that her task on earth was to become abundantly happy in the first place. Never having tasted such expectations to begin with, she had reaped no particular disenchantment from her marriage. Her marriage fulfilled its role, performed its necessary social task, became merely what it was and that was fine” (p. 42).

She goes on to write… “By contrast, I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love? I, for one, had always been taught by my culture that marriage ought to be a fertile greenhouse in which romantic love can abundantly flourish. Inside the somewhat rickety greenhouse of my first marriage, then, I had planted row after row of grand expectations” (p. 44). I love what she says here because it is so very true – our culture does in fact shape our beliefs about marriage and our happiness within it. Our culture has taught us to not only value our individualism, but to protect it. We have been taught to holdfast to OUR values, OUR rights, OUR beliefs, OUR desires, OUR wants because if we don’t then we won’t be happy. And ultimately, our happiness is all that matters right? WRONG, but the reality is that is what our culture has taught us. However, marriage was not created by our culture, but by God, and He created marriage not to make us happy but rather to make us HOLY. And that is what we MUST remember and NEVER ever forget!

In another part of the book she mentions how she made a list of her worst qualities and gave them to her partner, who then responded by saying, “Would you like to tell me something about yourself that I don’t already know?” FIRST OFF what a great way to respond…I loved it and wished he would then jump off the page so I could just squeeze him for his overwhelming acceptance of who she was and still is. Her partner continues the conversation by saying, “Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of that?’ because the good stuff is always going to be there and it’s always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you”….so we must learn to work with the flaws. Gilbert goes on to say, “There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, to love them almost despite themselves. I say this because listing our flaws so openly to each other was not some cutesy gimmick, but a real effort to reveal the points of darkness contained in our characters. They are no laughing matter, these faults. They can harm. They can undo. If we are at all self-aware, we work hard to keep these more dicey aspects of our natures under control, but they don’t go away. To be fully seen by somebody, then, and to be loved anyhow- this is a human offering that can border on the miraculous” (p. 130-131).

Isn’t that the truth?? Isn’t it miraculous and beautiful to be fully you with someone else? Isn’t it such a beautiful gift to be loved unconditionally? Isn’t that what we all want - Someone to love us in spite of our worst bits? This book made me think long and hard about my own marriage. In marriage you learn so much about yourself, and let me tell you I have learned so much about myself that I would rather not have learned!! My husband is simply a mirror reflecting the good, the bad and the ugly (and let me tell you there sure seems to be a lot of ugly) of who I am. He is kind, patient, and so loving, but when I go crazy, I go crazy and even the most kind, patient and loving man in the world could not stop the craziness. Within marriage there is someone holding you accountable to who you are and who you want to be. The other person is constantly trying to make you an even better person, but sometimes you want to yell at them (and sometimes I do) and say I don’t want to be better…I want to continue being a butt. However, when I fail to listen to him and when I continue to be a butt, nothing changes and the transformation of my being, especially the transformation of my heart does not occur.

I have so many friends getting married this year and sometimes I get scared that they will turn to me and ask me for advice, and I will look at them hopelessly and I will say I have no words of wisdom and I have no advice. However, the reality is, Peter and I have been married a little over ten months now so of course I have some advice to offer, but perhaps my advice will not be applicable to them or perhaps they want to pave their own way with marriage. So this is the advice I will offer. Be real. Be true. Be open. Be you. Because only when you are real, raw, honest and authentic will you ever fully experience true love.

Another piece of advice I would gladly offer is that they should lower their marriage expectations. In the book, Gilbert writes, “Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment,” and to be honest I have found this to be soo very true! I know it sounds horrible, but I think we all go into marriage with loads of expectations and we all feel as though we are entitled to be happy – our husband owes this to us – I am entitled to a happy marriage and I am entitled to be served and worshipped (okay a little extreme, but you get the point!). Don’t get me wrong, marriage is beautiful and it truly is such a gift from God and it does meet so many expectations, but the reality is that whenever you combine two people together – two stubborn, prideful people, and one who has extremely high expectations (ME) - things can get a little complicated and messy. At least this is the case with our own experience.

Another thing I have learned after being married ten months is that you need to nip your pride in the butt as fast as you possibly can! When you are wrong, you are wrong – no ifs, ands or buts- don’t try to justify why you said something or why you did something if it hurt the other person – the bottom line is feelings were hurt so the best words you can offer and the only thing they really want to hear is …I AM SORRY! And if that doesn’t work try I AM SOOOO SORRY and then if THAT doesn’t work then you just might have to get naked…=)

FINAL THOUGHTS….

One of the main things I learned from reading this book is that our concept of marriage is completely cultural and our expectations for it are also cultural. Within our culture marriage is not an arrangement, it is a choice, and love completely enters into the marriage equation. Thus when you fall out of love you fall out of marriage. However, I believe love is a choice and love is an action. You must choose to love that person each and every day, and that’s when it gets hard. Sometimes you don’t want to choose to love and sometimes you may not want to choose to love that person because sometimes… you just want to choose yourself and toss all those other things aside. However, this is WHY and HOW divorces happen. They happen because people stop CHOOSING to love.

I, on the other hand, have chosen to love Peter EVERY SINGLE DAY and I will continue choosing to love him as time passes by!