'Til death do us part - or maybe just until I don't like the arrangement anymore

Today, a student made a comment about how it's sad that nobody stays together anymore (this was random and unsolicited) so I told her "I'm staying married."

The kids countered, "You don't know that."

So I said, "Yes, I do. I'm staying married."

As the first girl was about to speak again, another spoke up in my defense but all she said was that she's seen us together and we're inseparable so of course we’re staying married.* I quickly changed the topic and moved on with class.  

 I had forgotten it until I got home tonight and logged into Facebook. I saw that a dear former student wrote something about tattoos. Get your father’s or son’s name tattooed on you. These guys will stay, she argued. She doesn’t think girls should tattoo their boyfriend’s name on them. This didn’t surprise me at all since it has been bantered about by my students throughout the years that if you get a tattoo of your significant other, you are destined to break up. And heck, I support that sentiment. What shocked me (and then only for a minute) was that she lumped husbands in there with the boyfriends! “- they come and go.”

It all has me thinking: What do kids think about marriage in the first place these days? That you just marry somebody and maybe you like them, maybe you don't? At least you get a heck of a party out of the deal? Maybe some kids?

Unfortunately, so many kids are the product of a marriage that ended poorly. Just a thought, though: People talk about a broken marriage but it is rare that they acknowledge that the marriage wasn’t what was broken but rather the two people in it. 

The best predictor of whether or not a couple will stay married is each individual's attitude toward marriage. If you go into it thinking, "If it doesn't work out, I'll just get a divorce," you're probably going to end up divorced because marriage is tough. But go into it with the idea that you're going to stick it out no matter what and you’ve got a fighting chance in a world that wants you to believe that options are better than commitment. My husband and I don’t always agree and marriage isn’t always butterflies and picnics by the lake. It is a daily choice to love one another through our sins (because nobody is perfect) and still stand side by side. 

I hope my kiddos will see that and I hope they'll come to understand that marriages don't have to end if you don't want them to. It's the only way we'll start reversing the current trend. 

Mrs. V

*NOTE: We do NOT kiss and hug in front of the kids but we DO try to be a good couple role model for them because a lot of them have only seen their parents’ marriage and that didn’t work out so that is all they have seen.

**If you are being abused or feel your life is in danger, please seek help. It is NEVER okay for someone to damage anyone else.

Want to play matchmaker on Valentine's Day? Read this first.

When are you going to settle down? Any special someone on the horizon? Don’t you want to be married?

These are the questions that rattle the cages of single people everywhere. And inside those cages are cringing, trembling, crying, and enraged people who don’t think it is any of your business whether they are single or not. And they don't want to explain why, either.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about married people being pressured to have kids and the response was incredible. I received so many messages about how this spoke to individuals and couples who are waiting to have kids either by their own choice or circumstances beyond their control or understanding. I also received a message, one that resonated with me and, months later, is still on my mind. “What about the single people?”

Like those of us who are married and childless, singletons are single by choice – theirs or someone else’s. It isn’t always in their control. The heart wants what the heart wants but, in the case of love, the desire that burns in many hearts is often not satiated. And while many singles want you and me and everyone else to know it, they won’t but in the closest of friendships reveal it to anyone. 

It is hard to feel rejected by most anyone anytime at our lives but it is especially painstaking to have people rub the ultimate (intentional or unwitting) rejection in the faces of those who are single.  Because that is what it feels like. In a culture obsessed with hearts and roses, saturated with sexy images and suggestive scenes, singletons are stuck on the thought that, “nobody wants me. Nobody needs me. I go unloved.” And never is it more painful than during the colder months when families gather to share holiday meals, champagne is raised and kisses are bestowed as midnight strikes, and aisles fill up with chocolate in red boxes shaped like hearts.

I’m not sure but at the very least, men seem to feel relieved when faced with no Valentine’s Day date. The pressure is off! But there is more than one lonely girl out there as evidenced by restaurant tables filled with giggles and girl-talk. The sheer number of Anti-Valentine’s Day parties that pop up around this time year after year is proof of the pain that this, the last in a string of lovey-coupley parties, inflicts.

From someone on the other side, I have something to say to you. Marriage is not always kisses and hugs and someone to pass you the potatoes. It is hard work, something that the rise in divorce rates should tell you.  It takes years to get to the point of having that happily ever after we read about. And, as a friend pointed out just last night, conflict with each other is something we will face until the moment we take our last breath.

A relationship is made up of two people who were raised by different sets of parents, had different sibling experiences, and have had life encounters that have shaped each person’s view of the way the world works. A marriage should not be forced and bully tactics have got to stop. While well intentioned in many cases, I believe it can be detrimental to your single loved one finding someone with whom they are truly compatible.

As expected as marriage may be, divorce expectations have risen in the minds of people, even as they are pledging to love, honor, and cherish until by death they are separated. Are we helping or hurting this trend with our pressure?

Please ease up on the questioning. Your single friends are literally begging you (through me). Singletons are painfully aware of their relationship status. The fact that you’ve noticed, too, is just one more dart aimed at the heart and broken hearts are in no shape to take care in finding real love.