Love is patient, love is kind, love endures, blah blah blah, isn't it
all wonderful? Vowing to persevere through sickness and health and in
wealth and poverty is tradition, and it's comfortable when associated
with lace and roses. But hasn't it proven to be fairly useless when it
comes to forging marriages that last forever? How many people have
mouthed the words, "until we are parted by death" while privately
plotting to move on as soon as a more attractive option presents itself?
Here's
a set of wedding vows with practical merit. They might sound
unconventional and unromantic. They're certainly not poetic, but these
promises, if kept, will go far in sealing a marriage for the ages.
1. I promise to clarify my expectations.
A
marriage ends because a spouse has failed to meet the expectations
their partner brought to the marriage. Expectations are unique, and come
packaged inside your fiancé's brain. You may think these things are
obvious or universal, that "everyone knows" what makes a good husband,
what makes a good wife. But the truth is, your expectations are yours
alone -- spawned from your experiences and locked in your head. There is
nothing you can assume about your partner's idea of what a good
marriage looks like. No harm will come from being very specific and
concrete about exactly what you want, not just in bed but in the bank
account, at the dinner table, with regard to parenting and everything
else. If you're too shy to mention what you believe is the right way to
behave, and you're hoping everything will become obvious as time goes
on, you're not ready to get married. Get it all in the open, and keep
putting it out in the open. If someone fails you, they should have to do it by choice, and not have ignorance as an excuse.
2. I promise to give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to money.
One
of the biggest adjustments when entering marriage is joint finances.
From being on your own and subject only to your own ups and downs,
you're now responsible for another person, or you're depending on
another person. That can be scary. Here's a vow you can make that will
help: If your spouse spends a lot of money on something, trust that they
know what they're doing. Trust them until it becomes impossible not to
trust them. Don't come out of the gate suspicious. Here's why you can do
this: You didn't marry an idiot. Right? If you think they're
overspending this month, chances are they're expecting a special check,
or they're compensating for underspending last month, or something else.
This is not a fool; this is your spouse. Surrender the worry that
they're going to drive you into financial ruin. Give the benefit of the
doubt. If they really do appear to be ruining you, then the last benefit
of the doubt you can give is that they don't know any better and need
help. Help kindly and respectfully, not with judgment and blame.
3. I promise to make sure I'm not just hungry before I yell at you.
Do
your wife or husband a favor: Eat your favorite sandwich and then come
back and yell at her/him all you want, if you still feel like it.
4. I promise not to give in to you for the sole purpose of using my compliance against you later.
Some
people call this passive aggressive behavior, but this is a very
specific maneuver that you can understand and avoid: Being the good
person, even though you don't want to, is not always good. Being so
compliant and docile that a halo pops out of your hair and lofts itself
over you, bathing you in its golden light, is sometimes a trick, and you
really intend to strangle your spouse with that halo somewhere down the
road. Being so good that next time there's an argument, you can point
back to this moment as an example of how your goodness practically rent
the sky in half -- that's not goodness. Don't do that. It's not going to
help in the long run. If you don't want to do something, fight not to
do it. If you want to do something, fight to do it. Be honest and don't
posture.
5. I promise to defend you to others, even if you are wrong.
Your
spouse is going encounter plenty of haters and critics. Don't join
them. Ever. In the privacy of your pillow, or your sofa, or your
minivan, you can have conversations that need to be had, if there's
really something that needs to be addressed. But you don't need to agree
with someone who's calling him a boor, or her an idiot. There is
nothing uglier than watching a husband degrade his wife or a wife demean
her husband in front of other people. It doesn't make you smart or
funny. It's just a low behavior. Your spouse's criticism hurts plenty,
even if it's private and kind. If it's public and rude, it's almost
unbearable.
6. I promise to try to put you before the children.
This
is tricky, because your biological imperative will be to put the
children first. Your physiology will be directing you to eat the face
off your spouse if he or she threatens the children's progress and
happiness in any way. This is why it's possible to make this promise to
each other: to really try to prioritize each other sometimes, even
though the children are absorbing so much of your life. In reality, if
you truly prioritize your spouse and leave your children out on the
porch in a dirty diaper in the rain, the police will come. But because
you're a normal person and not some child-abusing monster, you're not
going to do that. Making this promise might actually result in some time
spent together as a couple, some choices made for the benefit of Dad's
or Mom's agenda and goals instead of the kids' activities all the time,
and some needed balance.
7. I promise to do the stuff neither of us wants to do, if you really don't want to do it more than I don't.
My
husband hates to do the dishes. He really hates it and thinks it is
disgusting. I do not like to look at spreadsheets or think about money.
At all. It gives me panting fits. Now, I don't especially want to do the
dishes either. Nobody wants to do the dishes. But I'm okay doing the
dishes -- yes, every single time, even if I also cooked the dinner,
even if he left a plate full of gravy and broccoli bits hardening in the
sink. I don't really care that much, and I'm not going to stand on
principle to try and chase some goal of "fairness" and make him do the
dishes half the time. If fairness were what we were after, then I would
have to pay attention to the checking account and have a budget and
worry about mortgages. And I don't. That's not fair either. But we don't
care because we've made this promise:
8. I promise not to keep score.
You
can't win marriage. There are no points. Any reckoning or score-keeping
on your part is only going to result in told-you-so trumpeting or sad
dissatisfaction. Not keeping score means you don't have to pay back the
good stuff, and you don't get to punish the failures. It also means you
can give freely, and that you have a soft place to fall when you fail
yourself. There are consequences for every action -- good and bad. That
is true. But "forgive and forget" works two ways -- you forget the good
stuff you did and the bad stuff he/she did. In return you can expect
your bad stuff to be forgotten, and your spouse to give you good stuff
without measure.
9. I promise to not care if you get fat or skinny or old.
I'm
talking about getting fat, people. Butt, huge. Arms, wiggly. I'm also
talking about hot bodies wasting away to nothing. Boobs, gone. Butt,
gone. Can we talk about hair falling out? Not just boy hair, but girl
hair too. Weird moles developing. Facial hair getting thicker or
thinner. Googly eyes. The truth is, you don't really care about these
things. Your favorite person is your favorite person until the end of
time, even if their head falls off or they grow a third leg. Even if a
dragon comes and eats off the lower half of their body or they turn
purple or get warts. You know what matters is on the inside, and you can
articulate it. If you want to utter the most romantic words a woman
will ever hear, say, "I will love you forever, babe, even if you get wicked fat." Trust me. Your skinny fiancé will love you for this.
10. I promise to put your happiness before mine.
Really
it all boils down to this, doesn't it? You promise to subvert your
needs, your wants, your goals and priorities, to those of your spouse.
And he or she does the same for you. If you're both working for the
other's happiness, earnestly and sincerely, then you're both going to be
ridiculously happy. Here's the key though: It's not enough to sublimate
yourself and be a virtuous martyr for his/her dreams to come true. You
also have to allow your spouse to do the same for you. You have to be
able to say "Okay!" when he says "Go!" To say "Thanks!" when she says "I
don't mind!" And trust that when it's your turn to reverse roles,
you'll do the very same. Because in the end, it's not even selflessness.
It's working for the common good. And if you can't say you'll do that,
then "until we are parted by death" is just going to be a long, dull,
sad life sentence.
In my opinion, if you can't wholeheartedly vow
these things, you shouldn't be getting married. Yep, it's a little
tougher to promise "in fatness and in emaciation, even if my mother
hates you" than it is to promise "in joy and in sorrow, forsaking all
others." But which is really braver, and what promise more meaningful?
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