The meaning of marriage in context

The context of my support for marriage is how hard marriage can be, but how important it is to work at the marriage.

Someone in my circle of acquaintance recently asked, when the magic is gone what can a child expect the adults to do? I remember when things were really difficult with my wife, everything seemed so out of control. Nothing I did seemed to work, and I couldn't compromise anymore.

But when I looked at my children, I knew they felt the same way I did about my parents. I knew they wanted us to be in love again. I also knew they didn't ask for this, they were our relationship right there. I can see my wife in their faces and in their personalities just as much as my wife could see me in their faces and personalities.

Because they lived on as our relationship, our relationship needed to live too. It all deserved to be kept intact. And sure enough the answer was the right application of love, tolerance, and responsibility for each other. The only reason things felt out of control is (I'm sad to say) we just never learned how to do that properly, I guess.

I'm glad I Iearned that lesson, its changed a great many things about my life and how I live in it. And I think that is what people mean by marriage as a great institution of civilization. For me the only thing that had the undeniable reality that like a rock could not be worn away with all of the storms our lives were going through was my children and considering who they are, and our relationships.

And it is because I've found that rock, that I want everyone to build their marriages on that rock too. That is, I'm convinced, what marriage really means. That is its real context. While first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage, its what that event will mean for the rest of your life that is the real context of marriage. It is the love people will find even when the magic is gone, and then the magic returns.

That won't save every marriage because not all marriages can be saved by just one person's effort. Luckily my wife saw the same need I did, and it will save every marriage where both people see it and work towards it.