Marriage

According to good 'ol Webster.

mar-riage - noun - the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.
 
According to other people
 
mar-riage - noun - someone to help pay the bills, raise the kids, maintain the house, earn money, and spend time with each other on holidays and special occasions.
 
Lately with all the family drama (sorry, I'll get over this soon) in our lives our marriage has been called in to question more times than I can keep track of anymore.
 
I have been told things like "cut the cord", "lengthen his leash", "you guys spend way too much time together". And a few other comments that are along the same lines.
 
Webster (the dictionary guy) defines marriage as some technical term. Which technically it is. But an actual marriage is so much more complicated than that.
 
My in-laws have a marriage that I don't understand, as well as John's brother. His sister is in a long term relationship (hopefully soon to be married) and she has the same idea of marriage that her parents do. I realize that there are a lot of different situations and scenarios out there of different marriages, it's like snowflakes there are no two the same. What works for John and I might not work for you and vice versa.
 
I'll admit we do spend a lot of time together. But when we are apart, especially when my family is involved, I get the third degree about why John wasn't there. Even this past weekend that I spent with my Aunt. She felt bad that she missed out on getting to see John. She repeatedly apologized.
 
We do just about everything together. We go to the grocery store, we go to the dry cleaners, we go out to eat, we go on vacations together, we even go shopping together. Imagine that.

Yet, there are times, when we do things alone. I have play dates with a girlfriend where John does his own thing. On Saturday afternoons during the summer he and a buddy play golf while I go shopping or hang out at home or whatever I want to do. We can't imagine the other going on vacation without taking the other one with us. We can't imagine spending less time together than we do. We like the intimacy that our marriage has. We are both happy and empowered by our marriage as a couple and as individuals.
 
Yet, every year my mother in law goes to Las Vegas to spend a large chunk of her summer vacation with her mother, while John's Dad stays home. We are talking anywhere from 4-6 weeks that she is gone. While I understand that works for them, it wouldn't work for us. While Jean goes shopping, Dave stays home. They rarely spend large amounts of time together like John and I do. Which as long as they are happy, I'm not bashing it. I respect that is how their marriage works, and I don't criticize how their marriage works and tell them that they should spend more time together.
 
Yet John's family thinks that we should spend time apart. That we should be more independent and that I should "let" John have lunch with his sister or do other activities with them without me and their other significant other's tagging along. Because of their dislike for me, they think that this is the way that I want our marriage to be and that John has no opinion on the matter. They don't realize that he wants things this way too. That he thinks that we don't spend enough time together (and some weeks I agree to that). We consider our time apart from each other when we are at work. Otherwise you can pretty well assume that we are together. But on the same hand we both can do things without the other. Every now and then I have lunch or hang out with a friend without John and vice versa. But all of his friends and all of my friends want the other person included. They see us as a team, and they want to spend time with both of us, not just one of us. So it's harder for both of us to understand why his family wants to single us out.
 
I always wanted a marriage that was a partnership. I wanted us to be friends as well as partners and we are. We talk, we hang out, we do the laundry and argue about who will clean the bathroom. But we are happy. John included. Yet his family thinks that I am keeping his chain short and limiting his freedom. The thought never crosses their mind that maybe this is more John's choice and less mine. When we first got married I was afraid that I would be smothered and was concerned that I wouldn't get to do things on my own. Yet now if I go shopping, it usually doesn't last long, because it's more fun with John around. We are a package deal, whether his family, my family, or our friends like it or not.
 
I just wish that I could give his parents a big memo, and some duct tape to keep their mouths closed and some straws to keep their ears open. They might be surprised to learn a few things about their son's marriage if they were just willing to listen. They might learn a few things about their daughter in law too.
 
~Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24
 
~Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ... 1 Corinthians 13:4-10
 
~And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  Matthew 19:2-9



~“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Ephesians 5:31

~ The 3 most important days in my life: the day I was born, the day you were born, and the day when "I" and "You" became "We". -Unknown