What's Your Secret?

Thursday April 5, 2007 | 0 comments

My lovely parents-in-law are about to celebrate yet another wedding anniversary. They’ve been married for over thirty years. Thirty-plus beautifully glorious years. I’m sure glad they got hitched because my husband wasn’t going to bring himself into the world. I had a fun chat with them tonight. The topics ranged from tornadoes to talking through movies to psychological trauma the aforementioned husband sustained during potty training.

After we hung up, I got to thinking about relationships and marriage in particular. I found myself pondering the thousand year old rhetorical question of what makes it all work for ten, twenty, thirty…sixty years. With divorce rates soaring higher than ever, it is certain we are missing something. The very important something wherein lies a potential to restore our broken, skewed view of relating for life.

I think today marriage is viewed as a self-cleaning oven. Spray. Latch. Watch it work its magic. Or not. Go do something else, if you so desire. Your oven will be clean for you in a few hours. No sweat. No tears. No sacrifice. Very efficient. We leave it alone because it’s supposed to work itself out and then get the biggest surprise of our lives when it doesn’t.

I’ve also heard marriage likened to a garden—it needs to be planfully tended or it dies. Sometimes it is a slow death. Other times your garden wilts the next day. Problem is, one garden might take three weedings and five waterings a week and another will only require one of each every two months.

Either way, I find it a bit cookie-cutterish. I mean, those of us who have gone through premarital counseling have read and discussed various versions of “”The Principles Sure to Make Your Marriage Work.” And it’s not that I have anything against those principles. On the contrary, I strongly believe everyone should become familiar with the rules before they are allowed to play. Having said that, I must also say there is one truth I’ve found standing time and time again: the answer is that there is no answer. There is no one set of rules that fits all.

I mean sure, basic rules apply: respect, patience, sacrificial giving. But beyond this we are so extraordinarily unique that it’s impossible to serve up marital bliss in neatly pre-packaged survival kits. It would be nice to get the “all-you-will-need-for-battle” set right before you walk down the isle. Unfortunately, they don’t exist. Never will.

I suppose we are all responsible for choosing the ingredients to a magic potion that will make our marital relationship life-long. While my husband and I are very happily married, we are still working out our extraordinarily unique set of secrets that will make our marriage tick forever. Among them: prayer, an unwavering commitment to faithfulness, and willingness to compromise. What’s your secret?

{ Speak Your Mind }

Commenting has expired.