True Words from a Song

“Is there someone you know,
You’re loving them so,
But taking them all for granted.
You may lose them one day,
Someone takes them away,
And they don’t hear the words you long to say”

Bread, “Everything I Own”

One of my best friends had been married a few years before Raymond and I got married. She and her husband always took at least one vacation a year without their spouse. One time I wanted to go see my parents and Raymond did not have the time. I said something about going without him for a few days and he told me that would not happen. He did not believe in separate vacations. He thought it was bad for a marriage. Later in our marriage I did take a few short trips without Raymond, but I always had at least one kid with me and it was usually because Raymond was physically unable to go with us. My friend, well, she and her husband ended up taking one too many vacations apart. He met someone else on a separate vacation and their marriage ended in divorce.

My friend’s marriage did not end in divorce simply because they took separate vacations, but I can’t help but think they were careless with their marriage. I have a lot of friends that seem to be careless with their marriages. So many people seem to be leading completely different lives from their spouses. I’m not saying that anyone should lose their identity when they get married. I just think that if you love someone enough to marry them, then you should share your life with them.

I have married friends that fill their lives with so many activities after work they don’t get home until about 9:00 p.m. and then between household chores and catching up with bills and such they are lucky to see their spouses for fifteen minutes before bed time. I pity them.

I admit that there were times in our marriage before kids where Raymond and I chose commitments that kept us apart more than we liked, but they were choices we made in order to benefit us as a family on down the road. Sometimes we chose to work a lot to try to get ahead, especially when I would be offered overtime to stay and finish projects. When Raymond decided to get his Master's before we had children in order to be able to get a higher paying position so I could stay home with the children, we knew we would be sacrificing time together. However, we always made sure we spent time together at least one day a weekend. Sometimes it would only be a couple of hours, but it allowed us to talk about what was going on and make plans for the future. I think when a couple talks about the future together it reinforces the fact that each of them is in the relationship for the long haul.

I hear friends say they got divorced because they grew apart from their spouse. I always wonder if they grew apart or just did not spend enough time together to stay connected.

I also think a lot of couples never learn that no matter how much you love someone, marriage is work. Raymond and I used to talk about that all the time. We would watch friends get divorced and look at how they had put their commitment to each other aside while they let their outside life consume them and before they knew it there were so many obstacles in the marriage they did not want to work to overcome them. I have never understood people that work so hard for a company but are not willing to work hard for the person that they love and are the other half of their children’s lives.

On the flip side, I don’t understand people that are married, without children, and are completely miserable because of how their spouse treats them, but they stay any way because they do not want to be alone. Verbal and physical abuse should not be tolerated. That is not love.

W hen you add children to the mix, then you have added another commitment. Once again, abuse should not be tolerated, but couples should work harder to stay together.

Love is precious, it should not be taken for granted, and it can be taken away, but it is a shame to throw it away.