THOUGHTS ON MARRIAGE
Marriage is not a fairy tale... but it can have happy endings.

To say that it will be hard to make a marriage work will be putting it mildly... because you are committing to spending the rest of your life with an individual: A person who may or may not be of the same religion or race or socioeconomic background. You will be marrying the child he was, the games he used to play, the family he grew up in, and how his personality and dreams and goals in life were pre-determined, affected, dictated or went against his upbringing.

You marry his genes and family history of illnesses, and run the risk of losing him, or subjecting your kids to the same hereditary maladies (apart from the bad nose, short lashes, uneven teeth, bad skin, etc. that also come with the family he came from).

You marry the culture he grew up in... the long tolerance for infidels, the premium put on academic excellence, the quiet submission to elders (even when they're wrong), the conservative views on childrearing, the perpetual chauvinism.

You marry a person with a past, and will struggle in the present with him so you can have a future together... a compromise of the possible and each other's ideals.

And once in a while, you will feel threatened by who he was, or how he reacts to his family, or how he used to be.

You will wonder if that's a window to how he'd handle similar scenarios with you and your family in the future. You will wonder if you made the right choice in him. You will wonder if he has the stomach to go through the bad times with you. You will wonder if you can fight and keep faith as much as he could. You will wonder if he's still reacting to a childhood disillusionment or lost dream.

And every day, you will learn something new about him which won't always be endearing and beautiful. You will learn of the monster he's managed to control. And you will let him get to know the monsters that hound you.

Marriage, in order to work, will require a lot of vigilance and trust, of love and courage, of faith and forgiveness, of acceptance and grace.

And only those who make the necessary sacrifices and compromises get to enjoy the rewards...

*~*

Baby Jojo and I came from loving families. But we came from imperfect families. We even have ugly stories of family squabbles and such. We were both, or sometimes still are, monsters. But the miracle is the fact that love continues to grow in the imperfections we've had to deal with.

Thus, we continue to thrive and grow and bask in the glory of love and comfort, of concern and thoughtfulness, of charity and generosity, of promise and laughter.