The other day, I was talking to a colleague of mine about
the “M” word; yes, marriage. She opened up to me on her feelings about it and
how she had it all planned out from when she’d like for it to happen, where it
will happen, and how many people will attend.
The only problem was that she doesn’t have a special someone
in place to fulfill her master plan.
Once our trip into her world of gumdrops, candy canes and
ponies was over, she needed a male’s perspective.
Natalie: So
Deshair, do you ever think about getting married and having children one day?
Deshair: I thought about it on a few occasions. I never
flood my mind with it though. I don’t look at it as some type of mission to
accomplish.
Natalie: What do
you mean?
Deshair: The story that you just laid on me about your
dreams of marriage is more fantasy – and more of a dream than actual reality.
You want to be married by the age of 29, purchase a nice home with white picket
fences, and have your second child by age 31, blah, blah, blah. Sounds more
like you’re lining up your strategies for war than anything else.
Natalie: C’mon, there’s nothing wrong with having it all
planned out. A girl can dream can’t she?
Deshair: Well yeah, as long as your reality isn’t blurred by
it. You’re 27 and don’t even have a steady boyfriend. Yet you already have the
life of your next boyfriend planned out. Honestly, I don’t like that sh*t. I
don’t want to have my life planned out for me before a first date even happens.
Natalie: I hear
you.
Deshair: Look, whether you realize it or not, that dream of
yours will cause you to think outside of what’s in front of you. What will
happen if you’re 28 and you don’t have a man in your life? You’ll be so up in
arms to find you a husband that you’ll take just about anything that comes your
way.
Natalie: It ain’t
even like that Deshair.
Deshair: Really? So if you’re not married by 29, you won’t
be disappointed, even a little bit.
Natalie: Well, yes, I would be, but…
Deshair: Then it is like that. Natalie,
marriage should not under any circumstances be a mission to accomplish. If it
happens when you’re 32, let it happen then. There are certain things in life
that you shouldn’t plan all the way out. And the day of your marriage, without
being a fiancée in the first place, is one of them.
Once that conversation ended, I began to analyze similar
conversations I’ve had in regards to marriage, or at least the pitfalls that
comes with it. The Jagged Edge hit “Let’s Get Married” ran across my mind as to
where people may have subliminally caught the wrong message.
Lyrics like, “Meet me
at the alter, in your white dress / We ain’t getting no younger, we
mind-as-well do it.” I understand what they are saying, but I wouldn’t
suggest making this song your nuptial manual.
Statisticians wonder why the rate of divorce is at an
all-time high. I’ll give you a not so obvious reason why. Some couples look at
marriage as the 100-meter-dash to the alter. The yellow tape at the end of the
race which symbolizes victory when broken is the wedding day.
Once the honeymoon is over, the mentality becomes, “Now that
I have him/her, I can kick back, relax and slack off.” Sounds like a good
reason for a marriage to fall apart to me.
A love that can last forever isn’t a sprint race; it is a
marathon that you train for every day up until the time of the race. Marriage
begins the moment that the gun goes off, signifying the beginning of the race.
And if you have trained hard enough, 26 miles later, you’ll cross the finish
line of “til’ death do us part.”
So ladies, lets get back to the “Marriage on the Brain”
segment. Ever wondered why you ran a guy off early? Bringing up marriage too
early, even in the hypothetical form can do just that.
You see, it’s not like men are completed thrown by
commitment. Men just don’t want to have their entire life planned out for them;
living up to expectations that are built for a storybook. Commitment is built
on a free flowing line of energy, not upon deadlines and/or ultimatums.
Everybody heard the story of the woman who waited forever
for her man to propose to her. “We’ve been together for 10 years, and we’re
still not engaged,” she says. Well if she took the time out to really match up
their similarities, their goals and aspirations or lack there-of, she may have realized
in year two that marriage wouldn’t be the culmination of the relationship that
she was in.
There are woman who live by this story. They don’t want to
be that female that has waited for so long. But that doesn’t mean that you
should force your relationship beyond its limitations at the time out of fear
of time lost. When you take a chance on anything, you’re taking a risk. Finding
your forever love doesn’t come without taking risks.
The last thing that you want to do is push away someone
special in your life because you fear ending up like “this woman” you’ve heard
about.
Let’s work on eliminating some of the stress that we’re
creating upon our own situations. Let’s get to know one another. Let’s communicate
and come to realizations. I am not in any way saying to have a “Whatever
happens, happens” attitude. I am saying that you should open up your mind to
the truth in front of you.
Tips from the
Socialite
Whatever you’ve done to make someone happy, you must
maintain it to keep them happy.There’s nothing wrong with having expectations. Just be sure
that your expectations are realistic to your current connection.Try your best not to show the “M” on your forehead. The
actual race comes a distant second to the preparation for it.