SOURCE - https://brightwanderer.tumblr.com/post/681806049845608448
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned āforeverā into the only acceptable definition of success.
Likeā¦ if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, itās a āfailedā business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donāt actually want to keep doing that, youāre a āfailedā writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itās a āfailedā marriage.
The only acceptable āwin conditionā is āyou keep doing that thing foreverā. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a ārealā friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a āphaseā - or, alternatively, a āpityā that you donāt do that thing any more. A fandom is ādyingā because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And itās okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of successā¦ I donāt think thatās doing us any good at all.
what youāre saying is only true for some religions that donāt allow divorce. most do. thereās no forever after promise in most cases, just living together and caring for each other.
Then you shouldnāt use that phrase in the marriage vows, thatās the issue. If you donāt promise the forever, you are not failing the promise
itās not a requirement in vows; Iād be surprised if most people did it. your perception is colored by TV and movies which generally uses Catholic traditions because itās more suitable for visual representation.
I grew up in a Swedish pentecostal church so my experience in vows are more coloured by experience from that denomination rather than catholic tv
fair but still thereās a lot of religions and countries out there. where i live people usually just promise to take each other as spouses.
Iāve watched people who got married in high school go through divorce in their twenties and thirties and forties. Itās more than religion. You come out of the situation angry and insecure. You plunge into a dating pool thatās anxiety ridden and full of other jaded people. You carry your own insecurities with you. Often, the divorce is necessary, but itās rarely fun.
Feeling as though you have someone who wants to be near you and care for you, then waking up to discover that person is gone is extremely difficult.
Thereās no forever. Everything ends. But the end of a relationship means assuming a great deal of emotional and financial and physical baggage. A home built for two people is radically changed when one is gone.
It isnāt something to trivialize or make light of.
To clarify: I meant this purely at an interpersonal level, i.e. if you enter a marriage, you should at least honestly intend it to endure.
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