“Marriage is not a love affair.”
“You see, the whole thing in marriage is the relationship and yielding - knowing the functions, knowing that each is playing a role in an organism. One of the things I have realized - is that marriage is not a love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That’s why it’s a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you’re giving, you’re not giving to the other person: you are giving to the relationship. And if you realize that you are in the relationship just as another person is, then it becomes life building. A life fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you’re giving to somebody else. Do you know what I mean?” –Joseph Campbell
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I love Joseph Campbell and I can relate to what he means intellectually, but it’s all Chinese to me — and I actually studied Mandarin for a year and could speak it and write it — but if you don’t use it daily, it’s all Chinese again. Marriage–did you know that it comes from ‘maritus’ meaning husband….so, there’s the rub for me….where’s the wife in all of this? (First sign of the baggage I’m carrying around– I’ll put down those bags eventually .) I have been married for 23 years ‘legally’ and was married for 10 years before that ‘common law’. I can only define my marriage now as ‘a process’ of discovering who I am, who he is — all requiring tremendous patience and “stopping” to notice for brief moments here and there the unfolding and evolving of it all. I very rarely get myself out of the way long enough to “see” my husband for who he really is because my deeply ingrained pre-conceptions and past hurts and judgments are so damned noisy, but on occasion, when I get a glimpse, my soul sighs — it’s a wonderful thing when your soul sighs. My head then takes over and tells me –”Finally, you’re in touch with this incarnation’s life lessons — you’re fulfilling a part of your soul’s contract.” Silly head — my soul knows that the lessons are never-ending and I can take as many lifetimes or moments to learn whatever lessons I’m meant to learn. When two damaged people who come from four other damaged people get married — it’s difficult to conceive of giving to this third entity “the relationship” because you are both just trying to keep your head above water to rise above your childhood pain,make a living, raise children and then both of you have to get through “menopause”!! Oh joy, joy! — to be continued. Anne
Anne, such an interesting post!! I had to read it several times to get all the points you’re making. I’m not in your shoes but it sounds to me like you’re doing more than keeping your head above water. There is a lot of deep seeing in what you write, not to mention a lot of actual humanity.
Marriage is truly the most mysterious thing I’ve ever found myself involved in. And it gets mysterious-er and mysterious-er as time goes by…
Oh joy, joy!
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