Love, happiness, marriage

My girlfriends and I write to each other on a random basis. When things come up in our lives, we email and we ask about each others' perspectives.

This week, my elementary school best friends emailed to discuss the topic of marriage.  One of the girls has been struggling with dating and meeting guys that are a good fit for her.  She hasn't had many long-term relationships because it's been hard to "click" with someone beyond a couple of dates. As she talked about these challenges, she referred to facebook and seeing all these engagements and wedding posts and feeling bitter.  Why are other people getting married but not us? she asked.  How are people getting "that" when she feels so far away and so far behind from what they've got?

In response to her email, I wrote a long piece about my own thoughts regarding marriage. About love. About hope.  I also write about my life journeys being bitch-slapped by reality and instead of floating happily in love and/or marriage.

"... For me, I have equated marriage to all things magical.  Marriage means love. It means floating on cloud 9 and being happy all the time (I've learned that it's not). It means stability, it means unconditional give and take. It means meeting your other half and establishing a life together. It means commitment, perseverance, compromise, sometimes sacrifice, and ultimately, it means making an active choice to be with each other. It means open communication, respect for each other's values & decision-making, and it means loving (or trying to love) what's different than what you know.

Marriage is the "happily ever after" in my book, and it's what I've always imagined my ending to be.  Umm... wait, I take that back.  I never wanted it to be my ending, I wanted it to be my beginning, my middle and my end. Yeah.

However, as we've gotten older, I realize that marriage is actually not as magical as I thought I would be. And even more so, love is NOT the wondeful concept I projected it to be. 

Apparently, having to compromise and sacrifice is a shitty feeling that's only romanticized in chick flicks to make it seem like it's a GOOD thing. Trying to like what your partner likes is freakin' frustrating and annoying.  And sticking together through "thick-and-thin" can sound good but it blows because you just want to ditch them on the road sometimes. And then there's times when you don't even want to live by the morals and values you thought you believed in. You don't want to be open-minded anymore, and you don't want to try. You just want that other person to be exactly like you, think exactly like you, and just stfu and make you feel better. But they won't. So there's friction, friction, more friction, and you wonder where the love went. Well, that's love, my dears. Love (can) suck(s).  Of course then marriage can suck even more because you're committed to loving someone who you can't stand at times.

Realizing that love, marriage, and being happy is NOT the same has been the biggest surprise of my life. It's turned my world upside down, inside-out, and honest-to-God, I'm still reeling from the shock of it all.

In the past few years, I've learned that there are people in this world who are NOT married, but who have all of these wonderful things in their relationships that seem like the magical love that I imagine (lucky bastards!)  There are people who ARE married who have none of them (woe is them-- hello, reality). And there are people who think they are in love and have some of those magical things and also some of those shitty things (THE MAJORITY OF THEM!). So apparently, marriage is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to love and happiness.

I'm starting to get it when some people say they don't believe in marriage. I wonder about it now too. Who wants to handcuff themselves to someone else when when it's so much more relaxing to be on your own these days?

Still, there's the traditional, optimistic, and pathetically hopeful part of me that wants the whole enchilada.  I want to (still) believe that marriage can signify commitment, acceptance, perseverance, compromise, and happiness at the same time. I want to have all the things I didn't see in my parents' relationship, and I want to have all the things that I see in people who are happily together (married or not) and choosing each day to be together. Because I realize that it's so damn hard, I think it makes sense that even the screening process (aka dating) is going to be difficult.  Thank goodness ur not clicking with just anybody, _____ (friend's name)! Then you have to put-up-with-them months later, years later (That's what I do.  I click with anyone and everyone and then I suffer the consequences until I can no longer). The journey will only get harder, and if it's the right person, I think it's supposed to be more rewarding as well. So he better be worth it to make it to the final running!"