looking for a partner at all when they fall in love. It might be worth telling each other some of the reasons that you have confidence that this is the right thing to do. If you can’t think of any, then maybe you have some serious thinking to do. One couple called off their wedding after they were asked why they had chosen each other. The message came – ‘I couldn’t think of any good reason last night to marry him, and I still can’t, so we’re calling it off.’ People are generally not very good at telling people the positive things about why they value each other. In the old marriage service, when the ring was given, the man said ‘with my body I thee worship’. Worship really means ‘worth-ship’. That is why saying that you love each other matters so much. Taking stock of the things you value about each other simply adds to that. It is telling the other what he or she is worth to you.
Trust is part and parcel of commitment. It is easily lost, and only regained with great difficulty. So how much you trust each other is central. Brian and Joanna were talking about their financial arrangements. They didn’t have a joint account because ‘we could never trust each other enough’ – not a very good omen for their marriage. If you can’t trust someone with your money, can you trust them with your future? If people cannot trust each other, they are likely to be very possessive and suspicious. If people feel that is what is happening, they start to get anxious, and maybe even deceitful, in order not to feel trapped. Those are slippery slopes to be on. Jill’s husband was intensely jealous, partly because he didn’t think very highly of himself, knew that she was very pretty, and assumed that she would easily be enticed away by someone ‘better’. She felt she had no freedom, because he demanded to know where she was all the time, and so began to find ways of escaping to have time with her female friends. Nothing she was doing could have been a cause of worry for him, but he was driving her away from him by the way he was treating her.
If you are already living together, think about what differences getting married may make. If you cannot imagine that it will make any difference to your excellent relationship, then why are you doing it? It seems an expensive way of achieving nothing. If, on the other hand, you think it will make a difference, what will that difference be? Why does that matter to you, and what does it say about the way your relationship has already developed?
Things to talk about and share
Where are you going?
The vows at the beginning of this chapter have their feet firmly on the ground. They talk about better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health. If you are a very unusual couple, you might stand there on your wedding day and say ‘It’s all going to be worse, poorer and sick.’ But it is far more likely that you will be thinking it is all going to be better, richer and healthier! But the words say both. There is nothing dewy-eyed and romantic about them – they are tough words about real commitment.
Ted and Liz were a wonderful young couple. He was a fine sportsman. She was a bubbly personality who made everyone smile. But, six months into their wedding, she was taken seriously ill with a disease that amongst other things confined her to a wheelchair. Nothing in their marriage was like the dreams on their wedding day. Ted nursed her and cared for her for fifteen years. The week she died, he said ‘I couldn’t have had a happier marriage.’ From the outside, anyone would have said that was nonsense. But he meant it. They were totally committed to each other, and they still had each other. That was enough for them.
Things to talk about and share
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