Weddings

Now if you are a woman, a lady or a girl you may not like to read this unless you don't generally like Weddings either.

Don't get me wrong. I rejoice in almost any two people living together and being happy together and staying together as long as it works for both people. But marriage is sort of like taking the shackles and putting one shackle on the groom and one on the bride and then God help them.

Generally, the only people that marriage IS actually for sure good for is people that make their living putting on weddings and any kids that result from the marriage. For them, weddings might be really necessary on a basic survival level. But for the husband and wife, I don't know. I've seen some really great weddings turn into complete disasters one, five or even ten or more years down the road. It wasn't that those two people didn't love each other enough to have kids. It might have just been neither really had any idea of what it actually is really like to have and raise kids and just how expensive they are to raise, and how hard is to do a good job raising them if you are struggling to pay the bills or have unrealistic expectations for your life, your spouse's life or just your life together in general. Marriage is a scary thing after all, and kids just can make it more difficult to survive even though  they also can be wonderful at the same time. A friend of mine was telling me what I've been trying to say to my wife this summer, "Weddings just suck the life out of everyone." I think it is that everyone has to pay to get there, to give a gift, often watch someone they are in love with secretly get married to someone else, etc. etc. etc.

So, often for many people weddings even if you love the people getting married are horrific to participate in unless you are close to being a wedding crasher and are just coming to get laid, like in the movie "Wedding Crashers" with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.  I myself have been married three times and each time I found was a little strange until the very last time. Somehow at age 47 I was mature enough to have a nice wedding and enough money to go on a honeymoon to Hawaii with my new wife and to get married in Yosemite. But do I like weddings in general? No. Not really. However, if you are going to get married first be sure you are best friends. Otherwise, just forget it. If it is just a sexual attraction and nothing else really. Forget it. But if you philosophically share enough to be best friends then you actually have a chance for it to work long term. My wife and I have been together since 1994 in December and we married the next December. But still, weddings are really strange things at best for all men.

My first wedding I ever went to was for my father's business partner who was a Traditional Jewish man from Boston, I believe he was from. I was 12 years old and I wasn't Jewish so this was my experience. A bunch of people wore little hats, (the men) and the groom broke a glass with his foot (it looked like that hurt a lot). Then people started saying things to my Mom like, "How many children do you have?" and my mother said, "Just one. He broke the machinery" and the answer was, "Oh. You're just lazy". This was my experience with that wedding when I was 12 in 1960. The next wedding was someone that was about 10 years older than I from my church that I loved from afar and her new husband to be. They married in the Glass Church in Palos Verdes Peninsula (I don't know if it is there anymore. This would be early 60s). The next wedding that I didn't go to because I wasn't invited because I was an old boyfriend of two years of the bride was being across the street from the reception at a friends house knowing I couldn't go to the wedding. This was difficult because the lady getting married I might have married myself if I could have within about 5 years when I was ready for that sort of thing. At the time I was only 21 and really wasn't ready for marriage. This I knew for sure. So, I finally got married when my live in girlfriend got pregnant when I was 26. Many of my male friends at that time didn't marry. I think it was the times (late 1960s and early 1970s) and most of us thought marriage was kind of crazy then unless our girlfriends got pregnant. I myself, remember saying at age 25, "I wonder if my life will be a long series of girlfriends?". 1 1/2 years later I was married. (So much for the life of girlfriends idea. However, probably the best thing that happened to me in my 20s was my son who was born in 1974. He and I bonded as father and son and so when his mother and I broke up in late 1977, I was given custody of him when she wanted to go live with a famous artist who she eventually married. My son, gave me a discipline of raising him no matter what and this kept me from dating women who could be trouble. I had to be mature enough to only date women who would be a good stepmother for my son. This made me much more mature in my life than I actually wanted to be. But in the end, everything now has turned out okay for me and my son. He got his Bachelor of Science in Nursing December 2010. His wife got hers in June a month ago. So, things are looking up for them both. No. Even though I didn't become the psychologist that I wanted to become because my son was born in the middle of becoming a psychologist, I don't regret not fulfilling my dream of becoming a psychologist. Being a father, (not a husband) has been the most fulfilling thing in my life. However, my very best friend has always been my present wife. She rescued me from a divorce I didn't expect to survive and I rescued her 3 years later when he mother died and I almost lost her in her grief of losing her mother and a miscarriage at the same time. We both have saved each other when no one else could have saved us but God. So we both thank God that he sent each of us for the other so we wouldn't be alone. So even though I think weddings are generally terrible, marriage can be something that saves us in our lives if we are whole people beforehand. But unless you have two grownups with enough experience in life and themselves, marriage will only be hell in the end. This is important to know before you get married. So if your significant other is your best friend and you are both whole people and grown up in a real way then go for it!