Like yesterday’s post, I wanted to talk about another of these little viral stories that’s been going around. Again, I hate them because I feel mostly like they are disingenuous and written only because the author felt like it was something that would become popular.
For today, I give you “Marriage Isn’t For You”. Original post in italics.
Having been married only a year and a half, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn’t for me.
Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading.
Whew! You really had me worried there with that title!
I met my wife in high school when we were 15 years old. We were friends for ten years until…until we decided no longer wanted to be just friends. 🙂 I strongly recommend that best friends fall in love. Good times will be had by all.
Am I the only one who thinks that meeting your wife when you’re both 15 is gross? If I picked out a spouse at 15, and I say “picked out” because that’s the only way this works for a hypothetical because I wasn’t exactly playing the field, I would probably have picked the student teacher from my geography class who wasted a bunch of our time teaching us Hawaiian history. Purely because she was attractive and seemed close-ish to my age. WHICH ARE THE PRIMARY DECISION FACTORS WHEN YOU’RE FIFTEEN. YOU KNOW SEVEN PEOPLE!
The guy was nervous about getting married? Well, he should have been. He was friends with the girl for ten years before they even slept together? How? Why? I’d probably fuck a friend after five years, regardless of sex, just because I feel like they’ve earned a favor here and there, so what does it mean that it took these dodos ten years to figure it out?
Nevertheless, falling in love with my best friend did not prevent me from having certain fears and anxieties about getting married. The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? Was Kim the right person to marry? Would she make me happy?
Then, one fateful night, I shared these thoughts and concerns with my dad.
Ah, the magical dad advice. Nothing like it. Let’s see…regarding marriage, I recall something my father said about his regrets that the first two women he married had small breasts. One of these being my mom, by the way. Will this fella’s dad be as sage-like as my own? Let’s find out!
Perhaps each of us have moments in our lives when it feels like time slows down or the air becomes still and everything around us seems to draw in, marking that moment as one we will never forget.
Yeah, yeah. Sunrise, sunset, a single butterfly flapping its wings, the world in the eye of a child. Get on with it.
My dad giving his response to my concerns was such a moment for me. With a knowing smile he said, “Seth, you’re being totally selfish. So I’m going to make this really simple: marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.”
Then he resumed fishing from the old canoe he’d carved from a tree that grew in HIS father’s yard.
It was in that very moment that I knew that Kim was the right person to marry. I realized that I wanted to make her happy; to see her smile every day, to make her laugh every day. I wanted to be a part of her family, and my family wanted her to be a part of ours. And thinking back on all the times I had seen her play with my nieces, I knew that she was the one with whom I wanted to build our own family.
My father’s advice was both shocking and revelatory. It went against the grain of today’s “Walmart philosophy”, which is if it doesn’t make you happy, you can take it back and get a new one.
I think that you’ve mistaken the “Wal-Mart Philosophy” with the “Target Philosophy.” The Wal-Mart Philosophy is “Fuck them, let them run their carts into each other until they all die in a hell made out of unpolished floor tiles and a ridiculously high ceiling that still somehow manages to be claustrophobic.”
No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. Selfishness demands, “What’s in it for me?”, while Love asks, “What can I give?”
Okay, this part is a problem. Because I would like to marry a person. Not a weird void who is always striving to make me happy. A person who actually has shit she cares about and wants to do. It doesn’t really matter what it is, but there has to be SOMETHING, right? And hey, sometimes those other things will be in conflict with our relationship.
Some time ago, my wife showed me what it means to love selflessly. For many months, my heart had been hardening with a mixture of fear and resentment. Then, after the pressure had built up to where neither of us could stand it, emotions erupted. I was callous. I was selfish.
But instead of matching my selfishness, Kim did something beyond wonderful—she showed an outpouring of love. Laying aside all of the pain and aguish I had caused her, she lovingly took me in her arms and soothed my soul.
Well, that’s a great example. I could really understand what you meant after reading those very vague paragraphs that don’t explain where you were at or how she addressed it. Soothed your soul? That’s from the side of a Nyquil box, I’m almost positive.
Marriage is about family.
I realized that I had forgotten my dad’s advice. While Kim’s side of the marriage had been to love me, my side of the marriage had become all about me. This awful realization brought me to tears, and I promised my wife that I would try to be better.
I’m glad that we could be on the journey with you when you learned, as an adult male who is married, about the existence of empathy as a thing.
To all who are reading this article—married, almost married, single, or even the sworn bachelor or bachelorette—I want you to know that marriage isn’t for you. No true relationship of love is for you. Love is about the person you love.
And, paradoxically, the more you truly love that person, the more love you receive. And not just from your significant other, but from their friends and their family and thousands of others you never would have met had your love remained self-centered.
Truly, love and marriage isn’t for you. It’s for others.
But…then who is it for? If it’s not for me, and if you’re sending the same message to my partner…who IS marriage for?
By this logic, the person you should marry is not the person you love the most. It’s the person who loves YOU the most. Because to make them feel bad is the worst thing you could possibly do. It’s not for you anyway, right? So what’s the difference?
Let me tell you something, friends. Growing up in a house where your parents aren’t mutually invested in the relationship? Not fun. Doesn’t work out.
And I like how the dad’s advice is, “Well, yeah. You’re not necessarily going to be happy unless you can derive all of your happiness from making someone else happy. Get used to it.”
Meanwhile, this asshole is in the break room at my work and all he talks about is his wonderful wife and which ways he plans to make sure she’s fulfilled in the near future.
For a guy who is so into other people, he talks about himself a lot. Where’s his wife in all this? Why was she so prepared to marry a selfish prick? How did she feel about the fact that his personality changed in a big way? Is she even real?
I mean, good for him. But let me tell you, I have no desire to marry his female counterpart. The crucified, look what I’ve done for you person. The person with no ambition or ideas about what might make her happy outside of making me happy.
Here’s why I call bullshit on this post.
It’s a pointless, non-story. What’s the story here? That a guy’s dad told him that it’s not all about him? That he’s not living in the Truman Show (you gotta have a sturdy shovel to dig up that reference)? That his whole existence isn’t goddamn EdTV (unbreakable shovel for that one)? Big fucking deal.