{"id":2135,"date":"2014-06-15T13:50:25","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T03:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2135"},"modified":"2014-06-15T13:55:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T03:55:30","slug":"when-is-one-ready-to-get-married","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=2135","title":{"rendered":"When is one ready to get married?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is all very excellent and pertinent…<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.philosophersmail.com\/relationships\/when-is-one-ready-to-get-married\/<\/p>\n

When is one ready to get married?<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
\"Fletcher\r\n\u00a9 WireImage<\/pre>\n
It used to be when you\u2019d hit certain financial and social milestones: when you had a home to your name, a set of qualifications on the mantelpiece and a few cows and a parcel of land in your possession.<\/p>\n
But when, under the influence of Romantic ideology, this grew to seem altogether too mercenary and calculating, the focus shifted to emotions. It came to be thought important to\u00a0feel<\/i><\/b>\u00a0the right way. That was the true sign of a good union. And the right feelings included the sense that the other was \u2018the one\u2019, that you understood one another perfectly and that you\u2019d both never want to sleep with anyone else again.<\/p>\n
These ideas, though touching, have proved to be an almost sure recipe for the eventual dissolution of marriages \u2013 and have caused havoc in the emotional lives of millions of otherwise sane and well-meaning couples.<\/p>\n
As a corrective to them, what follows is a proposal for a very different set of principles, more Classical in temper, which indicate when two people should properly consider themselves ready for marriage.<\/p>\n
\"Baron\r\n\u00a9 REX\/DNphotograhy\/SIPA<\/pre>\n
We are ready for marriage\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/b>1. When we give up on perfection\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
We should not only admit in a general way that the person we are marrying is very far from perfect. We should also grasp the specifics of their imperfections: how they will be irritating, difficult, sometimes irrational, and often unable to sympathise or understand us. Vows should be rewritten to include the terse line: \u2018I agree to marry this person even though they will, on a regular basis, drive me to distraction.\u2019<\/p>\n
However, these flaws should never be interpreted as merely capturing a local problem. No one else would be better. We are as bad. We are a flawed species. Whomever one got together with would be radically imperfect in a host of deeply serious ways. One must conclusively kill the idea that things would be ideal with any other creature in this galaxy. There can only ever be a \u2018good enough\u2019 marriage.<\/p>\n
For this realisation to sink in, it helps to have had a number of relationships before marrying, not in order to have the chance to locate \u2018the right person\u2019, but so that one can have ample opportunity to discover at first hand, in many different contexts, the truth that everyone (even the most initially exciting prospect) really is a bit wrong close up.<\/p>\n
2. When we despair of being understood<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Alain\r\n\u00a9 Mondadori\/Getty<\/pre>\n
Love starts with the experience of being understood in a deeply supportive and uncommon way. They understand the lonely parts of you; you don\u2019t have to explain why you find a particular joke so funny; you hate the same people; they too want to try out a particular sexual scenario.<\/p>\n
This will not continue. Another vow should read: \u2018However much the other seems to understand me, there will always be large tracts of my psyche that will remain incomprehensible to them, anyone else and even me.\u2019<\/p>\n
We shouldn\u2019t, therefore, blame our lovers for a dereliction of duty in failing to interpret and grasp our internal workings. They were not tragically inept. They simply couldn\u2019t understand who we were and what we needed \u2013 which is wholly normal. No one properly understands, and can therefore fully sympathise with, anyone else.<\/p>\n
3. When we realise we are crazy<\/b><\/h3>\n
This is deeply counter-intuitive. We seem so normal and mostly so good. It\u2019s the others\u2026<\/p>\n
But maturity is founded on an active sense of one\u2019s folly. One is out of control for long periods, one has failed to master one\u2019s past, one projects unhelpfully, one is permanently anxious. One is, to put it mildly, an idiot.<\/p>\n
If we are not regularly and very deeply embarrassed about who we are, it can only be because we have a dangerous capacity for selective memory.<\/p>\n
4. When we are ready to love rather than be loved\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
Confusingly, we speak of \u2018love\u2019 as one thing, rather than discerning the two very different varieties that lie beneath the single word:\u00a0being loved\u00a0<\/i><\/b>and\u00a0loving<\/i><\/b>. We should marry when we are ready to do the latter and are aware of our unnatural, immature fixation on the former.<\/p>\n
We start out knowing only about \u2018being loved.\u2019 It comes to seem \u2013 very wrongly \u2013 like the norm. To the child, it feels as if the parent is simply spontaneously on hand to comfort, guide, entertain, feed, clear up and remain almost always warm and cheerful. Parents don\u2019t reveal how often they have bitten their tongue, fought back the tears and been too tired to take off their clothes after a day of childcare. The relationship is almost entirely non-reciprocal. The parent loves; but they do not expect the favour to be returned in any significant way. The parent does not get upset when the child has not noticed the new hair cut, asked carefully-calibrated questions about how the meeting at work went or suggested that they go upstairs to take a nap. Parent and child may both \u2018love\u2019, but each party is on a very different end of the axis, unbeknownst to the child.<\/p>\n
\"Bormes-les-Mimosas\r\n\u00a9 U. Baumgarten\/Getty<\/pre>\n
This is why in adulthood, when we first say we long for love, what we predominantly mean is that we want to be loved as we were once loved by a parent. We want a recreation in adulthood of what it felt like to be ministered to and indulged. In a secret part of our minds, we picture someone who will understand our needs, bring us what we want, be immensely patient and sympathetic to us, act selflessly and make it all better.<\/p>\n
This is \u2013 naturally \u2013 a disaster. For a marriage to work, we need to move firmly out of the child \u2013 and into the parental position. We need to become someone who will be willing to subordinate their own demands and concerns to the needs of another.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a further lesson to be learnt. When a child says to its parent \u2018I hate you\u2019, the parent does not automatically go numb with shock or threaten to leave the house and never come back, because the parent knows that the child is not giving the executive summary of a deeply thought-out and patient investigation into the state of the relationship. The cause of these words might be hunger, a lost but crucial piece of Lego, the fact that they went to a cocktail party last night, that they won\u2019t let them play a computer game, or that they have an earache\u2026<\/p>\n
Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn\u2019t yet know how to say: \u2018I\u2019m lonely, in pain, or frightened\u2019 \u2013 distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child\u2019s world: the parent.<\/p>\n
We find it exceptionally hard to make this move with our partners: to hear what they truly mean, rather than responding (furiously) to what they are saying.<\/p>\n
A third vow should state: \u2018Whenever I have the strength in me to do so, I will imitate those who once loved me and take care of my partner as these figures cared for me. The task isn\u2019t an unfair chore or a departure from the true nature of love. It is the only kind of love really worthy of that exalted word.\u2019<\/p>\n
5. When we are ready for administration<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Romantic person instinctively sees marriage in terms of emotions. But what a couple actually get up to together over a lifetime has much more in common with the workings of a small business. They must draw up work rosters, clean, chauffeur, cook, fix, throw away, mind, hire, fire, reconcile and budget.<\/p>\n
None of these activities have any glamour whatsoever within the current arrangement of society. Those obliged to do them are therefore highly likely to resent them and feel that something has gone wrong with their lives for having to involve themselves so closely with them. And yet these tasks are what is truly \u2018romantic\u2019 in the sense of \u2018conducive and sustaining of love\u2019 and should be interpreted as the bedrock of a successful marriage, and accorded all the honour currently given to other activities in society, like mountain climbing or motor sport.<\/p>\n
A central vow should read: \u2018I accept the dignity of the ironing board.\u2019<\/p>\n
\"Mid\r\n\u00a9 REX\/Mood Board<\/pre>\n
6. When we understand that sex and love do and don\u2019t belong together<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Romantic view expects that love and sex will be aligned. But in truth, they won\u2019t stay so beyond a few months or, at best, one or two years. This is not anyone\u2019s fault. Because marriage has other key concerns (companionship, administration, another generation), sex will suffer. We are ready to get married when we accept a large degree of sexual resignation and the task of sublimation.<\/p>\n
Both parties must therefore scrupulously avoid making the marriage \u2018about sex\u2019. They must also, from the outset, plan for the most challenging issue that will, statistically-speaking, arise for them: that one or the other will have affairs. Someone is properly ready for marriage when they are ready to behave maturely around betraying and being betrayed.<\/p>\n
The inexperienced, immature view of betrayal goes like this: sex doesn\u2019t have to be part of love. It can be quick and meaningless, just like playing tennis. Two people shouldn\u2019t try to own each other\u2019s bodies. It\u2019s just a bit of fun. So one\u2019s partner shouldn\u2019t mind so much.<\/p>\n
\"Jealous\r\n\u00a9 Getty<\/pre>\n
But this is wilfully to ignore impregnable basics of human nature. No one can be the victim of adultery and not feel that they have been found fundamentally wanting and cut to the core of their being. They will never get over it. It makes no sense, of course, but that isn\u2019t the point. Many things about us make little sense \u2013 and yet have to be respected. The adulterer has to be ready to honour and forgive the partner\u2019s extreme capacity for jealousy, and so must as far as is possible resist the urge to have sex with other people, must take every possible measure to prevent it being known if they do and must respond with extraordinary kindness and patience if the truth does ever emerge. They should above all never try to persuade their partner that it isn\u2019t right to be jealous or that jealousy is unnatural, \u2018bad\u2019 or a bourgeois construct.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the equation, one should ready oneself for betrayal. That is, one should make strenuous efforts to try to understand what might go through the partner\u2019s mind when they have sex with someone else. One is likely to think that there is no other option but that they are deliberately trying to humiliate one and that all their love has evaporated. The more likely truth \u2013 that one\u2019s partner just wants to have more, or different, sex \u2013 is as hard to master as Mandarin or the oboe and requires as much practice.<\/p>\n
One is ready to get married when two very difficult things are in place: one is ready to believe in one\u2019s partner\u2019s genuine capacity to separate love and sex. And at the same time, one is ready to believe in one\u2019s partner\u2019s stubborn inability to keep love and sex apart.<\/p>\n
Two people have to be able to master both feats, because they may \u2013 over a lifetime \u2013 be called upon to demonstrate both capacities. This \u2013 rather than a vow never to have sex with another human again \u2013 should be the relevant test for getting married.<\/p>\n
7. When we are happy to be taught and calm about teaching<\/b><\/h3>\n
We are ready for marriage when we accept that in certain very significant areas, our partners will be wiser, more reasonable and more mature than we are. We should want to learn from them. We should bear having things pointed out to us. We should, at key points, see them as the teacher and ourselves as pupils. At the same time, we should be ready to take on the task of teaching them certain things and like good teachers, not shout, lose our tempers or expect them simply to know. Marriage should be recognised as a process of mutual education.<\/p>\n
8. When we realise we\u2019re not that compatible<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Romantic view of marriage stresses that the \u2018right\u2019 person means someone who shares our tastes, interests and general attitudes to life. This might be true in the short term. But, over an extended period of time, the relevance of this fades dramatically; because differences inevitably emerge. The person who is truly best suited to us is not the person who shares our tastes, but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently and wisely.<\/p>\n
Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate difference that is the true marker of the \u2018right\u2019 person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn\u2019t be its precondition.<\/p>\n
Conclusion\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Healthy\r\n\u00a9 Getty<\/pre>\n
We have accepted that it is a truly good idea to attend some classes before having children. This is now the norm for all educated people in all developed nations.<\/p>\n
Yet there is as yet no widespread acceptability for the idea of having classes before getting married. The results are around for all to see.<\/p>\n
The time has come to bury the Romantic intuition-based view of marriage and learn to practice and rehearse marriage as one would ice-skating or violin playing, activities no more complex and no more deserving of systematic periods of instruction.<\/p>\n
For now, while the infrastructure of new vows and classes is put in place, we all deserve untold sympathy for our struggles. We are trying to do something enormously difficult without the bare minimum of support necessary. It is not surprising if \u2013 very often \u2013 we have troubles.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is all very excellent and pertinent… http:\/\/www.philosophersmail.com\/relationships\/when-is-one-ready-to-get-married\/ When is one ready to get married? \u00a9 WireImage It used to be when you\u2019d hit certain financial and social milestones: when you had a home to your name, a set of qualifications on the mantelpiece and a few cows and a parcel of land in your … Continue reading When is one ready to get married?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,34,18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool","category-family-matters","category-meaning","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2136,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135\/revisions\/2136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}