unequal. The wife belonged to the husband, but not vice versa. Now, as a beginning to the marriage service says, ‘In marriage husband and wife belong to one another.’ Each is the most precious thing the other has. To know we come first, second and last in someone else’s life is the most affirming thing that can happen to us. To love and be loved makes people blossom, like a flower opening.
Where are you coming from?
A television documentary traced the stories of some children who were bought the most amazing presents, and had extraordinary amounts of money spent on them. They were not particularly happy children. One of them, faced with a parent saying that she went out to work just so she could buy all these things, said that she would prefer just to have her mum’s time and attention. We all want to be needed, not tolerated. We all want to be valued, not bought. Most parents do give themselves in huge measure to their children. But often children don’t realize all that their parents give up for them until they are parents themselves.
It would be good to think through all the things that made you feel secure as a child, the things that made you feel loved, the things that made you feel that you belonged. By the same token, think of the things that made you feel less secure, and what effect that had on you.
People who come from homes where there has been little sense of commitment may find it harder to feel such security in adult life – but will almost certainly crave it deeply. Ron was such a young man. He had learned he could never rely on people. His parents were more concerned for their own interests than for anything they might do as a family. His father was a workaholic, and his mother busy with a whirl of social activities. He was left with a succession of babysitters. As he grew older, he realized they were simply paid to look after him, and had no interest in him as a person. In fact, he began to wonder if he was worth knowing. He didn’t seem to matter very much to anyone.
Paula and Graham had lived together for over seven years before they decided to get married. The vicar asked why they wanted marriage after such a long time. Their reply was both warming and sad at the same time. ‘It’s taken us all this time to feel we could risk it. We have each seen both our parents divorced twice – six divorces in all. Marriage always seemed to spell gloom and disaster. It’s only after being really happy for as long as this that we can dare put the label round our necks.’
In adult life we learn the hard way that we cannot trust everyone. In different ways, people sometimes let us down. They promise something but don’t keep the promise. We think we can rely on them, but find that we were wrong. The more we are let down, the harder it is to trust someone else. That will be especially true of broken relationships that meant a lot to us. We bring those hurts into new relationships we make, in the hope of finding healing and new hope.
Things to talk about and share
• You?
• Work?
• Money?
• Pleasure?
Where are you now?
Something remarkable has happened in your life. You probably wouldn’t be reading this book unless you were on the verge of getting married. So someone has so deeply affected you that you feel able to say – ‘Yes, this is the person I want to be with for the rest of my life.’ No doubt you could analyse some of the reasons why they fit your bill – but most people don’t have a conscious ‘shopping list’ when they are looking for a partner. In fact, most people are not consciously looking for a partner at all when they fall in love. It might be worth telling each other some of the reasons that you have confidence that this is the right thing to do. If you can’t think of any, then maybe you have some serious thinking to do. One couple called off their wedding after they were asked why they had chosen each other. The message came – ‘I couldn’t think of any good reason last night to marry him, and I still can’t, so we’re calling it off.’ People are generally not very good at telling people the positive things about why they value each other. In the old marriage service, when the ring was given, the man said ‘with my body I thee worship’. Worship really means ‘worth-ship’. That is why saying that you love each other matters so much. Taking stock of the things you value about each other simply adds to that. It is telling the other what he or she is worth to you.
Trust is part and parcel of commitment. It is easily lost, and only regained with great difficulty. So how much you trust each other is central. Brian and Joanna were talking about their financial arrangements. They didn’t have a joint account because ‘we could never trust each other enough’ – not a very good omen for their marriage. If you can’t trust someone with your money, can you trust them with your future? If people cannot trust each other, they are likely to be very possessive and suspicious. If people feel that is what is happening, they start to get anxious, and maybe even deceitful, in order not to feel trapped. Those are slippery slopes to be on. Jill’s husband was intensely jealous, partly because he didn’t think very highly of himself, knew that she was very pretty, and assumed that she would easily be enticed away by someone ‘better’. She felt she had no freedom, because he demanded to know where she was all the time, and so began to find ways of escaping to have time with her female friends. Nothing she was doing could have been a cause of worry for him, but he was driving her away from him by the way he was treating her.
If you are already living together, think about what differences getting married may make. If you cannot imagine that it will make any difference to your excellent relationship, then why are you doing it? It seems an expensive way of achieving nothing. If, on the other hand, you think it will make a difference, what will that difference be? Why does that matter to you, and what does it say about the way your relationship has already developed?
Things to talk about and share