Undertaking Marriage

By David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Copyright Untaming Programs 1999. This article may not be reproduced in part or whole without express written permission from Celeritous Dancer, Chtd.

www.untaming.com

Chelona grew up across the street from a wedding chapel. Day after day people launched their marriages 100 feet from where she lived. On summer days the stream of people was endless, marriage after marriage. White wedding dresses, flowers, bridesmaids and groomsmen paraded through the chapel as pictures were snapped.

Usually, when people get married, dreams are being launched and fulfilled. Granted, there are the practical concerns about good providers, social pressure and even unplanned children. But even amongst these, there are dreams.

People dream of love, warmth, commitment and conversation. There are plans for honeymoons, houses, promotions, children and eventually retirement. People growing old together, long in love and now also the best of friends. Whether the chance meeting that launches a marriage occurs at church, a bar, work or arranged by friends the dreams begin. Often the fulfillment of dreams held since childhood. The first glance, the first touch, the first kiss and the first passionate tryst in bed all play into this magic. Two people come together and begin to build a future, dreamed as two.

At the wedding commitments get made. These are done with traditional vows or self-written proclamations, but the idea is still the same. Two people who want to be loved and to love. Two people who want closeness and warmth and abandoned passion and a partner for life. Someone to talk with, laugh with, cry with. A person who cheers for their success and holds them tightly through failure. The idea, minus unique derivatives, is usually the same.

The pressures of life and day to day existence begin, whether before the wedding actually happens, or on the honeymoon, or a few years later. Dreams aren't all they were imagined, careless or even harsh words get said and the downward spiral begins.

My office is for burials and resurrections. An unrecognized mortuary for dead relationships and grieving souls. On a good day the dead come to life. Sometimes I even get a week where I begin to believe I work miracles, as so many nearly lost marriages are retrieved from the depths of hell. But then the cruel hand of the marital Grim Reaper reaches into my office to remind me that I am just an instrument in the endless life, death and burial of marriage.

What is painful in this parade of souls is the number of deaths that were needless. People who could have found their way through rehabilitation, or even come off the life support systems. But instead they pull the plug. Remember the downward spiral? That first set of careless or cruel words? At some point--that point--people begin the dance of death. Even though apologies get made, the wound is deep and the sentiment insincere. So at the next encounter defenses emerge. Sometimes the defenses rumble in like tanks or sometimes they slip through the night sky like a stealth bomber. Other times they are just there with the strength of stone walls. But the defenses come. Each party beats a little harder in their quest to break in, win some point or just get sex when there is no closeness. The wound deepens and the defenses dig in for the long haul. The war of attrition is launched.

As the downward spiral continues each party blames the other. The partners search through the rubble of their dreams and imagine that if only their partner were different the dreams would come true. Lip service is paid for their own part in the cancer infecting their marriage but it is only that: lip--service.

In my mortuary hardly anyone comes in and asks how they turned their marriage into a shambles; asks how they turned their partner into the contorted and distorted shell of what they once were. Instead they want to press on with the litany of how this is their partner's entire fault. If only he or she would________. Fill in the blank. It doesn't matter. It isn't true, isn't realistic and isn't kind. Most of all it isn't kind. Kindness has long since disappeared from the partner's repertoire. Mock kindness occurs, but not the deep, warm, caring type.

Marriages rarely want memorials--cremations seem to be preferred. People leave with the urn containing the ashes of their hopes and dreams and previous warmth and caring. The urn is placed in a closet, or basement or maybe even on the mantel. For those who will honestly and painful review their own behavior, their own contribution there may be hope for future relating. For the others, it is just a matter of time till another urn joins the first.

But then there is the exception. Couples fighting for life, knowing that anything but a full commitment and endless work will lead to death. These couples look at themselves, raise the questions about their part in the sickness of the marriage. They work diligently to improve, grow and change for the sake of preserving their marital dreams and memories. They work to save the family for their children, their relatives and most of all for themselves and their future. Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, herbal treatments and spiritual quests are all fair game in their desire to keep the marriage alive. Usually, when both partners exhibit this level of dedication, the marriage survives, rehabilitates and eventually thrives.

Sometimes marriages are meant to die. It is the only humane end to abuse, cruelty or years of neglect. When I measure these for the casket there is a finality and rightness to the cycle of life and death.

I go to work every morning for the resurrections. For the couples so committed, self-responsible and self-aware that no matter how bruised, even comatose the marriage, life will once again pour into their time together. The joy of happy faces and warm caresses inspires my daily trek to the office.

But some nights I go home having only been the purveyor of caskets, taking out the tape measure, fluffing the velvet interior, polishing the beautiful brass fixtures and placing the cold lifeless body of the marriage into the box. On those nights I realize that, like it or not, I am sometimes nothing more than a salesman of plots in the cemetery of dreams and the land of grieving souls.

Archives of previous articles:

Upgrading How You Relate by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Friend, Stranger or Enemy by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Protecting Soul and Psyche by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

The Answer is Mutual Respect by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Certainty as the Cure for Anger II by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Trust by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Three Faces of Fear by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D. and Chelona Edgerly, Ph.D.

Hate Crimes Against Women by David W. Edgerly, Ph.D.

Do The Hard Things by Connie Pruss

Strong Is Sexy by Chelona Edgerly, Ph.D.

Physical Therapy for the Soul by Chelona Edgerly, Ph.D.