I have a relative who married on April Fool’s Day. As a result of COVID, the wedding reception was held several months later on Friday the 13th. I thought, “What brave souls.”
I also thought, “From the way some people’s marriages have turned out, these dates would have been perfect omens of what was to come!”
A politician once said, “I believe love is the answer, but you should own a gun, just in case.”
The politician wasn’t talking about marriage, but you have, Dear Reader, heard of a “shotgun wedding.”
Did you ever hear of a “shotgun divorce”?
I once received an email that suggested one hundred questions that parents could ask their teenagers to stimulate meaningful conversation. Two of the suggestions were, “Do you know anyone who you would say has an ideal marriage or relationship?” and, “Do you think you might want to get married one day?”
It does seem wise for parents to talk about the important issue of marriage to their adolescents to promote timely, positive thinking on such an important matter.
In response to the first question, anyone who has been married for any respectable length of time knows there is no such thing as the perfect, ideal marriage.
In light of this fact, the second question becomes all the more important.
There was for many years the idealized American dream that a couple should marry, live in a house with a white picket fence, and have two children, preferably a boy and a girl.
I’m not sure for a lot of people that dream was realized, especially during the Great Depression, second World War, and the aftermath. Perhaps the following message I received in my email will illustrate:
I grew up with practical parents. A mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen before they had a name for it. A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.
Perhaps this doesn’t seem an “ideal” situation to today’s young people, but there was a bright side: Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.
As my former pastor Oliver Wolfenbarger occasionally said in his sermons, “Things are not always going to be lovely.”
The best formed plans often go awry. In marriage, things aren’t always “lovely.”
Perhaps a third question that should be posed to teenagers considering future marriage might be, “If you choose to marry, and should find yourself in need of marriage counseling, to whom would you turn?
First of all, there are trained, professional marriage counselors who would probably charge as much for their services as doctors and other medical personnel. For most of us, I wouldn’t think we would want to pay the cost for the service.
If I remember correctly, and that is always debatable for me these days, when I married in 2006 there was a discounted fee for a marriage license in Tennessee if marriage counseling was obtained.
My intended and I took our pastor and his wife out to eat. After the meal, Mrs. Wolfenbarger drove to do her shopping, and we took Preacher Wolfenbarger to the church, where he provided counseling for us in his office. Then we took Preacher Wolfenbarger home.
That counseling was provided by the cost of a meal to the preacher and his wife, and was also more or less included in the cost of the marriage license and whatever voluntary donation to the church we chose to make.
Preacher Wolfenbarger’s counseling was worth far more than what could have been paid in cash.
Of course, it’s no surprise that marital advice has for decades been provided freely on television. Once, on Hollywood Squares, Rose Marie was asked, “According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he’s married?”
Rose Marie’s reply was, “No, wait until morning.”
Sometimes free advice is worth its cost, and this is undoubtedly one of those times.
I took a “Marriage and the Family” course at Lincoln Memorial University around 35 years ago to satisfy my need for a sociology credit. I made an “A” in the course, but after all these years I only remember one thing—marital satisfaction sharply decreases with the birth of children, then rises after the children are raised, but never to the level that existed before there were children.
That is not to discount the joy and importance of children within a marriage. Some of the best insights into marriage have been provided by those age ten and under. Following are some examples.
When asked, “How do you decide whom to marry?” a ten-year-old boy answered, “You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.”
A ten year-old-girl had a different opinion: “No person really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.”
An eight-year-old boy related how a stranger can tell if two people are married: “You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.”
An eight-year-old girl said her mom and dad had one thing in common: “Both don’t want any more kids.”
Obviously, it is more important than a person might think whom one chooses to kiss.
Some children were asked, “When is it okay to kiss someone?”
A seven-year-old girl said, “When they’re rich.”
A seven-year-old boy evidenced some wisdom, even if slightly misguided, in his answer: “The law says you have to be 18, so I wouldn’t want to mess with that.”
With assurance, another eight-year-old boy answered, “The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It’s the right thing to do.”
We must not forget those who perhaps wisely choose not to marry. An eight-year-old boy was asked how the world would be different if people didn’t get married. He said, “There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn’t there?”
For all men who choose to marry, perhaps the best advice given came from a ten-year-old as to how to make a marriage work. He responded, “Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.”
All jokes aside, a fine marriage endures the tests of time like fine wine, getting better with age.
An elderly person reflected on life like this: And then it is winter.
You know… time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing years.
It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and embarking on my new life. Yet in a way, it seems like eons ago, and I wonder where all the years went. I know that I lived them all.
I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams. But, here it is… The winter of my life and it catches me by surprise… How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go and where did my youth go?
Another senior citizen provided this observation, which could be in response to the observation above:
Grandchildren don't make a man feel old. It's the knowledge that he's married to a grandmother that does. ― J. Normal Colli
To end with the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”