“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. ” —Ursula K. Le Guin
Marriage is like purchasing a lottery ticket. The stakes are high. Your odds of winning are low. The irony behind it all? (We always think we're gonna win anyway...) Just like there’s millions of people in the world right now thinking that luck will somehow smile at them this time around and grant them with the winning combination, there’s equally millions who delude themselves into thinking that their marriage won’t be another failed statistic in the book of divorce. We love to convince ourselves that we can conquer all the odds, don't we?
We’re off to a good start as you can see. Realistic ideas.
Imagine playing an effin expensive game knowing in advance that your chances of winning are as slim as 10%. Would you still play it anyways? It’s interesting to me that we seem compelled to give so much importance to the end result.
Whatever endeavor we pursue, it’s as if the prize to be collected is somehow at the end. In a similar vein, when a marriage ends in a divorce, we tend to look at it as no good solely because it ended. It’s as if we dismiss everything that has happened before that final point.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting. Some married couples secretly fantasize of filling for divorce, yet they never do. Should we see their union as a "success" simply because they kept their contract intact till death did them part even though they secretly wanted to strangle each other for the last decade? You tell me!
To enter the extremely fragile organization that is marriage with a selfish heart and a jumbo size ego is to already sink the ship before it even departed. Throw a couple of kids into the mix, and next thing you know, you’re headed to D town!
Marriage looks magnificent on pictures, yet the ugliness is to be found behind closed doors. That’s because it is hard work, to say the least! If it was a walk in the park, no spouse would ever entertain the thought of planning their exist strategy. Yet many can’t help but secretly wish for that get out of jail free card.
If humans weren’t so tied to their family size ego, perhaps the statistics could paint a different picture. But the reality is that we are complex, faulty and damaged creatures, and we unconsciously (and many times willingly) spill our nasty shit onto the ones that are closest to us.
So who’s gonna be selfless first?
Who will abide by the rules of servanthood?
Who will choose the death of their own ego over the death of their marriage?
Jks. All bets are off anyway.