the neverending story

Weddings are great. Marriage, however is a whole other story.

I think for a marriage to work really well you have to know YOURSELF well. How many of us really KNEW what we wanted to do when we graduated from school? Is it fair to ask an 18, 21 year old what they want to do with the rest of their life? They know nothing about life... how can they answer a question like that.

When we stand there up at the alter and utter those words "for better or for worse" do we really have ANY inkling to what we are really saying? I mean, at that age what is the 'worse' we can think of? At 18 22 25 how well do we really know ourselves. How we will react to living the life we have signed up for. I don't think at that age most people have a good working definition of sacrifice and compromise.

If we don't even know ourselves that well, how are we expected to really know our prospective spouse?

How patience are we? How well do we pay attention to nutrition? How well do we handle our finances? What do we each want in the way of a career? How active or inactive are we? Do we yell, or have a short fuse? Do we sulk, do we drink? Do we like to travel or do we hate crowds? What type of noise level in the house are we accustomed to?

I think, that we think by automatically being together, we will change into the people we want ourselves and our partners to be.

But I have learned... when the times get rough people don't step up to the challenge - they default to their training. And really you don't know how well a person has been trained (or yourself for that matter) until you are down in a fox hole with them.