Is Forever Human or Religious?

Mar
2010

Is Forever Human or Religious?

In light of the Jesse James and Sandra Bullock issues I can’t help but wonder if marriage, and it’s notions of “forever” are human or religious based. Growing up I saw many friend’s parents go through divorces. It was normal for one of my friends to have a step mom, step siblings, and get more on Christmas because of this. Needless to say, divorce has never been taboo to my generation. I would also like to say that I grew up in Leave it to Beaver land. My parents met when they were 13, married at 18, and had 34 great years together before my Dad passed away in 2007.

I have always felt that love is the last magic left on Earth. When you love someone your mind fills with euphoric chemicals and thoughts of the future are bright, exciting, and dare I say foreveresque. We are programmed to the tune of dating, monogamous relationships, marriage (although at times not recognized by the state), kids, and till death due us part. Sure, there are variations on this, but you get the picture. With that said, divorce is many times looked upon as a failure. I tend to disagree.

I believe that two people genuinely enter into a relationship hoping for forever. It is only with marriage, after all, that the old adage, “nothing lasts forever” gets thrown out the window. And marriage in and of itself is a very religious union. And as with many things religious, if you don’t follow the rules you are screwed!

Let me first say that I am 100% against cheating. If the person I marry needs to be with someone else on an emotional or physical level, then please leave me accordingly. However, there are those that have open marriages and in their case cheating is no longer cheating. That’s another post.

I am in a relationship now. It’s very new, but we have already discussed moving in together, marriage, and having kids. It’s part of the package. But so are the following thoughts.

If I buy this house and she leaves me can I afford it on my own?
If we have kids together and we separate what are my legal rights?
Who get’s the 50 inch flat screen we just bought together?

Am I tainting our new and blissful relationship by thinking about these things already, or am I just being a realist. I tend to be a fan of marriage and all that it stands for, but I don’t tend to believe in it. I feel this way because I also know that as humans we change. Change is a part of life.

So lets say three years from now my girlfriend and I are still madly in love. Insert wedding bells here and put us in a state that recognizes our same sex commitment. For me to think about anything but forever on that day would be an abomination. Though I’m sure people do and I’m sure they keep that shit to themselves.

Lets fast forward to eleven years from our wedding date. I’ve been waking up next to her and not feeling the same. The spark we had int he beginning has mutated and then mutated again. I know marriage is work, but isn’t love supposed to have something to do with it? Have I fallen out of love? Have I changed? How do I fix this? Should I continue on with the promise of forever if I’ve fallen out of love? Do I stay because of the kids? Have I failed myself, my family, and my wife due to emotions I have no control over?

I don’t condone Jesse James for cheating on Sandra Bullock. What I do is wonder why we do the things we do. It gets even more complicated when someone cheats and still loves the person they are married to. I guess my question is, do we stay if we’re no longer in love. And if I’m no longer in love with someone why will I get looked upon as a failure for ending the marriage? I’m not saying that I am going to throw my hands up at the first sign of struggle, but is it not human to change? Is it not normal to fall out of love as magically as I fell into love? Do the religious pressures of a union created when people’s life expectancy was 30 still hold true?

Your thoughts are welcome via comments…

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Posted by: goldstardyke
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Posted in Infedility, Marriage Equality, Relationships
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2 Responses to Is Forever Human or Religious?

GSD,

My wife and I met almost exactly twelve years ago. We got married six months later. It wasn’t a religious thing. My wife is agnostic. I’m a Buddhist. It was more a public declaration of our commitment and love for each other and an opportunity to share the experience with some of our closest friends.

In the past twelve years, we’ve been through a lot of challenges, but never have we stopped loving each other and never has either of us cheated. We are still like two teenagers in love, as one of our friends recently said. Our love had deepened rather than faded.

Has our being married kept us together? I believe it is one of the many struts that continues to support our relationship, along with trust, honesty, compassion and a refusal to hold grudges.

I wish everyone was as blessed as I am, when it comes to love.

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by Dharma Kelleher on March 19th, 2010 at 2:02 PM

I’m posting anonymously today, and I’m doing it for the exact same point that you are trying to make: I don’t want to be viewed as a failure. (I haven’t failed; myself, my wife, my family, or my commitment to our relationship. But I do feel as though I am teetering on the edge of something that makes the last temptation of Christ look like a kid whining for candy at Kroger.)

Lately it seems that I can’t escape the very questions that you pose in your blog. What’s worse is that I don’t even know if I truly feel guilty for having these thoughts; to say that my relationship has been undergoing struggles would be a vast understatement. While these struggles are completely unrelated, I find that I am fantasizing regularly about someone else, a deep yearning that I feel very little control over. You know the kind of yearning I’m talking ’bout, most people do; the only thing you can do is just stay as far away from the person as possible, because otherwise, any conversation become stimulation to the sexual tension that is obviously already building up.

And just to complicate the matter further, this person, this fantasy, this purely physical-primitive feeling is for–Heavens NO–a man. UGH! Right? Tell me about it. There goes my lesbianism, right out the window.

Through all this longing though, I am still in love with my wife. My feelings for her have not changed, and when we are connecting and things are sunny, the attraction I have towards this guy vanishes like a whisper in a crowded room. It’s still there, but the volume is turned way down.

It isn’t about a relationship for me however. I refuse to blame our struggles together for wanting to have sex with this guy. That would be irresponsible and misguided. I want what I want, and very little changes that. It’s the sunny days with my wife (the ones we used to have all the time) that keep this desire from overtaking my ability to control myself. So as one can imagine, on the dark days, the temptation becomes overwhelming.

Is this selfish? Probably, yes. And I’m fairly certain it sounds arrogant to admit my own selfishness so (seeming) unabashedly. What I am 100% positive of is that I have very little control over my attraction to this person, and all I can ask for is the continuous strength to keep the promises I have made to my wife. I know deep down that every relationship takes work, and sometimes what you want more than anything is one night, one ENCOUNTER, to take a break from the labor of love.

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by you don't know me, at least this time on April 1st, 2010 at 6:16 AM