For Better or For Worse

Today is going to be short and sweet.

If you're involved with someone and thinking about marriage, think twice. It's important to remember that dating or courting is one thing; marriage is an entirely different ball game. The world culture would like us to believe that marriage is something that can be gotten into and out of on a whim, but God's word states that marriage is a covenant - an unbreakable bond. Man and woman together become one flesh - that is to say, your union together will inescapably bind the two of you forever. I'm not just talking about sexual intimacy, but from the moment the two of you say, "I do," you had both be in it for the long haul, or the marriage is doomed.

My wife and I married two and a half years ago. Things were peachy while I was still in the military, supplying her with the funds to continue living. She bore my child while I was deployed, and then became accustomed to independent life without me. When I came back from Iraq and left the Army, things turned sour quickly. I needed my wife to support me, but she wasn't interested in someone that was mentally and emotionally broken, who was "going nowhere" in life. If she were anything like what a spouse is supposed to be, she would have stuck with me - and I guarantee that our marriage would be stronger now than ever, and more fulfilling as well.

In closing, marriage is vital. If you go into it lightly, without a sober view on what marriage is intended to be and how a husband and wife are supposed to operate, then remember that the mortality rate for that type of union is extreme. Not to say that you and your spouse can't pull together eventually and decide to really make it work (which, in my belief, requires a relationship with God, who teaches us unconditional love among other things), but in hindsight my marriage lasted two and a half years before my wife moved out, and if we had worked together at ALL during that period, things might have been saved.

Make sure you know your spouse and are not blinded by love before you marry. Save the blindness caused by love for after marriage, when you must learn to love and adore your spouses imperfections as well as his/her excellent points. Never, ever, ever fail to support your spouse. Marriage is not 50/50. It is 100/100, with both husband and wife giving everything they have to each other.

Time to break camp and roll. Out.