Dear Jack, there’s that mistaken belief marriage is a one-way traffic system, not a two-lane highway. If you stick to that erroneous belief and start exercising one-sided faith in your relationship, your emotions will be at risk.
Truth is, all that’s required for a painful and sorrowful marriage is for just one party to begin to malfunction, not both parties. It’s why some of the approaches to settling marriages in difficulty are mistaken. They often assume there’s a “quarrel in a marriage to be settled. What if there’s no quarrel and it’s just one malfunctioning, depressed and unhappy individual destroying the marriage? The other person will of course be helpless. There’s nothing he or she can do. You can’t control the other party.
In a marriage each party must subscribe to the decision to create happiness. And some people decide to opt out of the subscription leaving the other dazed and confused. It actually takes ONLY one party to make a marriage hell! That’s all that’s required. When you understand the import of what I just said you’ll know the danger of marrying someone who doesn’t love you. That YOU love someone doesn’t mean you’re going to have a good marriage. If the someone doesn’t love you back, the marriage will seem like an over-fried chicken. It’s chicken alright, somehow looks like chicken, somehow tastes like chicken but lacking in succulence. There are such marriages. They look like burnt offerings from a malicious cook. They’re dry, lacking in emotional nutrient. The sinews taste like charcoal. Marriage has to be a complete biological circuitry of love and affection. The blood passing through the veins and arteries of a marriage must be constantly oxygenated with affection. Without the pumping of love into the bloodstream of a marriage the marriage will die.
Now here’s the danger in your love pursuit. Your relationship seems a one-way traffic. You love her no doubt, but does she love you? If you’re THINKING about the answer to that question, you already have the answer. But of course I conceded that one can choose to delude himself. It would seem that fooling oneself is a fundamental human right – the right to belief in fairy tales. But at least be honest with yourself that you’re fooling yourself. You’re stretching even your credulity with your believing “the-best-of-someone” line about your girlfriend. Believing the best of someone doesn’t deny facts. It’s why it’s called believing the best of someone. Your relationship is totally one-sided. If you proceed it to marriage you will suffer emotionally. I keep saying it, don’t marry someone who doesn’t love you. Marriage is too proximate for lack of love. You’ll feel it! What is marriage without love! Without love and affection marriage turns into a functional apparatus that bestows mere prefixes of Mr. and Mrs. A marriage of mere prefixes of Mr. & Mrs. is not a marriage of souls. And so you’ll live together, go to occasions, even go to church in the same car, but truly there’s no marriage. You’re just cohabitants – people who occupy the same geographical space in functional civility.
That doesn’t mean there’ll be no children in the marriage. People copulate and bear without loving each other. Mother is not the equivalence of wife, and father is not the equivalence of husband. They are separate functions, separate concepts. Offspring defines mother and father not husband and wife. You keep making excuses about this lady. Every bad behavior is explained away. And what can’t be explained away is absorbed by, “But I love her!” as if you’re some victim of yourself. You seem confused in your role. You’re functioning as messiah not a potential husband. And I keep telling you the title of Messiah is taken. Stop trying to be one.
Everything you’ve written in your letter about this woman points to a very painful and sorrowful marriage. She’s obdurate, obstreperous, vociferating and pachydermatous. You won’t get any emotional nutrient from her and you need emotional nutrient in marriage. It’s called caring, it’s called affection, it’s called love. You’ll be lost in this marriage if you go into it. You won’t understand what’s happening. And you’ll suffer greatly in silence. Depression will knock at your door. Marriage requires voluntary self-submission to one another. It must not be coarsed. Love is generous. When there’s a selfish partner, someone always suffers emotionally. Too much forbearance of terrible traits and you have a picture of someone insisting on having his or her way in a marriage. And such people never know where or when to stop. It’s attitudinal: it’s what they’re used to. It’s become character. They’re used to getting away with what they want and can’t imagine otherwise.
This “relationship” doesn’t augur well. But of course it’s your choice. You have a right to pursuit of unhappiness. Why you’ll do that beats me hollow though. Don’t understand. This is not a relationship. This is you relating to her. A relationship is two-way. And something tells me you’re afraid of her. If so be, you’re going into marriage with an emotional thug. A word has always been enough for the wise. Those who require paragraphs are otherwise.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com