What is the worst thing your husband or wife ever did to you? And what is the best? In contemplating the complex realities of married life, it’s important not to forget that second question. For just as we may be shocked by what we start learning about each other almost as soon as the honeymoon is over, so may we also be happily surprised. We may find that marriage reveals in our spouse, in addition to the not-too-terrific news, quite unsuspected reservoirs of tenderness, generosity, strength, compassion, honor, patience or good humor.
So now the “work” begins, the work of: “Accepting the flawed, imperfect person we’ve married.” Reconciling some – not all, but hopefully enough – of our difficult differences. Coming to terms with what we cannot get, and never are going to get, from each other. Creating, we two together, our “third thing.”
But the life couples make together, the third thing they create together, will be composed of many common experiences – shared friends, shared children, shared movies and meals and vacation and troubles and pleasures, shared days and weeks and months and years and decades. Sooner or later, the "what-we-share" will become, if they help it along, far more central to their life than the "what-we-don’t".
As a couple endeavors, together, to create a shared life, the third thing, they will have to deal with some serious marital shocks. And so, along with the other work they’re doing (job/profession/career whatever you call it), they need to figure out why this “work” is worthwhile.
Having to work things out in a marriage is exciting and scary at the same time.
ReplyDelete