When Marriages Bite The Dust

It unnerves me no end when I see marriages crumble and bite the dust. As a child, I saw couples stay together come hell or high water, and divorces were very uncommon decades ago. In many cases, the concerned parties tried hard to work at their marriage, and in some cases, they just put up with the situation for very many reasons, the foremost of them being for the sake of their children. Not so these days. Separations, divorces, and bitter legal wranglings are ubiquitous across cultures, and there seems to be an attitude of impatience in that most people do not have the inclination to even give any attempt at reconciliation a try. There also seems to be an overriding feeling of self-centredness wherein the individual just focuses on individual happiness and justifies the thought,"If you're unhappy in a marriage, just get out!" In fact, these were the very words uttered to me by one who had married her fourth husband, and was trying to explain to me why she had divorced the previous three.

In cases where I have seen the couple very much in love in the early years, it comes as quite a shock to see how quickly they have fallen out of love now. Where did all that love go in the intervening years, I always ask myself?!? Public displays of affection such as the almost 50 -year-old wife sitting on her husband's lap in the presence of company, advertising her love and affection for him just five years ago, have now deteriorated into a situation where they just can't stand the sight of each other. In some cases, either the man or the woman has walked out of the house, and lives alone or has moved in with friends. At least in a couple of cases I know, where children are involved, the man has just taken off and has had no contact with the wife or children for years at a stretch. The wife doesn't know whether the husband is even alive or dead. Didn't these men marry their women for love, and weren't those children conceived out of love? Whatever dire thing could have happened to bring about this kind of an estrangement?

All I can understand is that making a marriage succeed requires hard work on the part of both the husband and wife. Instead of just blaming one another for the unpleasant turn of events, hurling accusations at one another, and letting all the acrimony between them crumble their marriage, it would serve well if both the husband and wife just allowed a moment of introspection, closed their eyes and recalled the person they initially fell in love with, and relived their love-filled, memorable days of the past. Understanding, empathy, adjustment, a give-and -take attitude, and above all, forgiveness that comes from the bottom of one's heart, will all go a long way to save the marriage. After all, life is very short. Unless otherwise the reasons are dire and warrant a separation or divorce, such as physical or emotional abuse, we should make the most of our short lives by cutting out the acrimony in our marriage. And this comes from yours truly who's now in her twenty-fifth year of marriage at which she's worked so hard! :)