My wife and I just paid for most of my God Daughters Wedding. It cost about as much as my new 4 wheel drive Truck. The groom (magna Cum Laud) from his university was wondering why all the guys there weren't giving him a hug to wish him well. I think it started when his mother walked up and toasted him but was so scared she forgot to hug her son and only hugged the bride in front of everyone. So I think he sort of felt neglected. So he said, "Mom. How about me?" and the whole wedding party laughed as she was embarrassed into going back and hugging her son. Luckily, she won't have to worry about his beautiful new wife always being there for him. He really married a one in a million kind of girl in our God Daughter. That's why we didn't have any problem helping her pay for her wedding.
So, after my wife told me about how he didn't feel like he was being emotionally supported in this new marriage like he should be I decided to talk to him "Iron Man John" style on his cell as they were driving home to southern California from the northern California Coast where they were married.
I called and said, "I wanted to talk to you about how marriage is different for men than for women. And men kind of understand this who have been married for more than 5 or 10 years.
Marriage for men who understand this sort of thing and live it every day for years and years see being married a lot like 'Being a Captain of a ship'. Sometimes the Captain has to go down with the ship. It's an honor to be married to someone worthwhile. And it can be the most wonderful thing in your life. Or it can be like being tied to a rack for your life in a prison. So men kind of are in awe of each new young man brave enough to become a "Captain of his ship" because this might result in the end in his death or his insanity. So, I think the best way to describe how a man entering marriage is most thought of by other men is "Respect" and "Awe" that someone is willing to do this for someone they care about that much. At the same time men kind of wince at that level of commitment as marriage is always a "near death" experience for all men involved.
Marriage for a man is the opposite of Freedom. Marriage is commitment to someone you believe in that makes your life worthwhile. When you marry you don't always know the future and literally almost anything can happen and often does. What the future will bring you might not know. But what you do know is that you are making a commitment to live it together. And sometimes you win an sometimes you lose and sometimes both in the same marriage at different times.
I have been married three times in my life, I told him. I have been married every day of my life since I was 26 years old except for two years and I'm now 63 years old. I told him the last time I married I was coming out of a completely hell divorce that I wasn't sure I could even survive emotionally. So I was struggling to create my new life before my old one completely destroyed me. I remember being so scared getting married after going through that divorce that I almost fainted at the alter getting married. I told the new groom and now husband. It says something about how I feel about marriage that I have been married every day since I was 26 except for 2 years of my life. Once you get used to being married (about 2 to 3 years or more) to a good person you really don't want something else full time. You might have a wandering eye and want a one night stand but you know in your heart that you would then lose all you really have in any relationship. Trust. Trust is all you really have in any relationship with your wife, friends or relatives. Once that is lost you have nothing and no reason to be together anymore unless you have children together. And even then that is touch and go then. Nope. Trust is all any of us have. Without real trust that can always be counted upon we have nothing. And in my last marrriage my wife and I have trust and faithfulness. This wasn't always true in the past. But it is now since 1995 for me. I'm a very lucky man. Grattitude is the motor of life. If you are really grateful for what you have, God gives you more and more and more of every good thing. Remember that!
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