A Question on Marriage

I was chatting with an older friend earlier. He was all worked up about the possibility of getting a job in Europe. He lists the places he will visit: London, Italy, Paris. While I was happy for him, I had to ask the question: Aren't you a bit discomfitted that you'll be so far away from your family? Don't you ever want a normal set-up? To grow and develop a relationship with your wife and your seven year old son? Because it's entirely possible for them to be together, he's well-off enough and he's an engineer who can command a really high salary and with lots of job offers due to a boom in the oil and gas industry he can very well adjust his job to his needs and priorities.

I am not writing this to pass judgement, just to be clear. I just find it sad.Although I am not privy to all the details of his family life, I've gathered from his occasional statements, when the talk about family and finding partners come into our group's conversations that there seem to be not so much love lost between him and his wife. He says what he and his wife has is an arrangement, something they have to do for their kid. And then he recalls the one love that he lost a long time ago, the one he, I think, still feels as his soulmate.

And it's just a bit depressing, the whole thing about accepting and even liking the set-up-- a relationship stunted by all the distance, those lost years. When I prod about the worthlessness of such a set-up---a long distance marriage, he tells me there are many ways to be happy. That it's better than to be together and be constantly at war with each other.


Is it the idealist in me that finds this unacceptable? Was it arrogant to say to him pointblank that I wish I would not end up with such a terrible marriage arrangement. My heart's been broken a couple of times, yes. And I know too that sometimes despite efforts, sometimes love is not enough--there's other factors to consider-- time, distance and past hurts. But still, despite all these lessons learned, I still cling to the thought that in marriage, we should never settle for less than someone we could not live without. And one thing I learned, the worst and hardest roadblock to a successful relationship is distance.

Because I'm brash and young, I told him that it's such a miserable thing. To be married but not reap the benefits and went on to enumerate my wistful thoughts.
Above all I want a partner in the truest sense of the word, someone who would understand that I'm carefree and introspective and moody, that yes, I am complicated. Someone who may not share my interests but respects them nonetheless. Who'd understand that I'd most often rather bake a cake, prepare an elaborate dinner for him than say sugary stuffs to his face. I want someone who is somehow like me--a traveller, someone I can banter with, one who'd appreciate my crazy and sometimes way-off sense of humor. I want a friend who I can take on as an equal. A partner in life, not a partner in rearing a child. I think it's the whole point in marriage, find someone you feel you can grow and evolve with. Because sure, you'd change. You'd develop new interests, maybe you'll want to jump to another career field, maybe you'd want to jump countries or continents, that's what a spouse is. Someone you want to take with you in all your swerves and turns. Someone you'd chosen to be your travel buddy in life. And I tell him all these, my older friend who's been married for eight years but who has spent a total of less than a year with his wife and kid.

I've been travelling the world for the past three years. Sometimes with a partner, sometimes alone. And I've learned how one can possibly be happy living alone but that there is nothing that can compare to having someone to dream with, to banter with, to get crabby at. Little stuffs that make a partnership worth it. And now even though I am happy, I still pray for it most of all. That in the end, if God wills that I will have a partner, I hope that he is someone I can really grow with as a person. It's been said again and again, enough times to consider it a banner for our generation: marriage is not easy, and it is hard work. It's my biggest prayer that whoever comes into my life next, that we'd be bestfriends more than being lovers. That we'd love each other enough to fight it out till the end.

My friend types that life is not perfect and as an answer to my undeniably idealistic and somewhat offending statements he says maybe in time he'll figure something out..I hope so too, for their happiness, that they work it out. That they be together long enough to rediscover each other.