| Would you "Marry the ONE you Love" or "Love the ONE you Marry"?
Posted: 2/23/2009 2:45:57 PM | I recently had this conversation with my mother.
She said in their days, they marry first and then LOVE THE ONE THEY MARRIED. She said doing so ensured more marriages lasts longer than these days because they basically start from ZERO and then work towards 100% whiles these days we want to START from 100% and maintain it there which is very difficult if not impossible.
She points out arranged marriages as an example.
Well whiles I vehemently disagreed with her, I have actually given it a thought afterwards and she seems to make more sense than my motto of FALL in LOVE and then marry!
My question is, has any one taken her route and is it better? She added that obviously they had to tolerate each others faults first. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 2:57:29 PM | | That's true, for your grandmother's time at least,and to some extent your mother's, people looked for wealth, land, social status, job, family history, and so on. For both men and women there was a finite number of people to choose from due to travel/communication limitations. If you hesitated too long.... . Now, everyone is still looking for the same things, it's just there are so many options it's too hard to pick and stop and fall in love | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 3:03:59 PM | I have tried this approach, actually. I'm not ashamed to admit to it. On two ocassions I moved in with a man on what was basically the first date. LOL ( I tend to be a tad unconventional for those of you who may not have noticed...).
In both instances it was like instantly being married to a stranger who I got to know better over time. I found it quite enjoyable and comfortable. The first relationship lasted for four years and ended shortly after we became engaged. LOL
The second relationship I am currently in. This is year 3. I suspect that it will go on indefinately as long as neither of us mentions anything about marriage. LOL
I think that once you have experienced "virtual marriage", no one in their right mind would ever want to do it for real. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 3:04:16 PM | | Love aside I think it is important to know if the relationship is functional. I say love is not enough to hold a relationship together. There has to be lots of other factors. Do you agree on kids, money, have any hobbies together. What stance do you hold on roles in a relationship. I think it takes a long time to get to know a person. A healthy relationship in my opinion should explore someone before making a decision to spend life together. As far as past relationships and the divorce rate: It was not common for people to get divorced or socially except able. In the past generation it may have been necessary to marry out of need, or function. Today we marry out of love and companionship. Those dynamics are also more likely to change today. People grow apart or change a core focus of their life somewhere in the middle. I think the fact that relationships are based on and equal partnership, and that most families are two working parents make a large difference. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 3:07:58 PM | Really, I think your mother has a faulty memory or she lived in a strange area where people were marrying for the sake of being married...because romantic marriages have been around for a very very long time and you aren't old enough for your mother to be living in a time when people married or what...died???
People stayed married more often because getting a divorce was harder, women had fewer options/rights and jobs for single women with children didn't pay well enough to raise kids on your own. Also men didn't like having to financially support a stay-at-home mom and kids, they quite often took the road of 'cheaper to keep her' and just had lovers on the side (also other kids on the side).
The reason to get married shouldn't be for romantic love or for forced ownership, it should be because you want to spend the rest of your life with this person and if there are children, you both want to raise them together. If you are happy in your marriage, romance and security are outcomes. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 3:29:01 PM | Nope...I haven't taken that route and wouldn't. I can't see spending my life with someone in the hopes I would learn to love them. That leaves the door too wide open for the opposite . So what do you do?...spend your life waiting for it to happen?
I don't think it's even a case of people doing that "back in the day". From some of the forum posts, it seems to me that many still do that, the way they go on about expecting to be "looked after". Kinda like, if you look after me well enough, maaaaaybe I'll learn to love you for it. If not, I'll stay with you long enough to find out you don't provide enough, then I'll move on to greener pastures. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 3:52:12 PM | Why does anyone need to spend an entire life with anyone? Or have kids for that matter? Also, you don't need to get married to spend your entire life with someone...
It seems that it's all just for emotional and financial stability.
I don't want to get married. However, if I were already married, I would see no reason to seek a divorce. If my relationship had been an arranged marriage, I would say that it was a successful one. Anyone confused yet?
Maybe people should always make life long commitments early on during the lusty days before reality has a chance to set in, and we begin to notice the other one's flaws. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 5:09:51 PM | I would never marry someone I didnt love.
The only reason marriages lasted longer was that divorce was not an option. Do you have any idea what the abuse rate was back then? There is a VERY good reason why that system no longer exists. It doesnt work.
Why is the divorce rate so high today? Look at the couples around you. How long did they date before they got married? How old were they? And the biggest question.......how many people are willing to seek help when it gets rough?
Love is the ONLY thing that will hold a relationship together.
Anything else, and it is just a business arrangement. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 5:23:38 PM | | I am perhaps an old "romantic" but I believe in being in love with someone. I had an eleven year relationship and sought "marriage guidance" because things were rough even though we were only dating. I married my first love in the hope we would be together forever but it didn't work out. If you love you have everything and cherish it. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 7:29:17 PM |
Would you "Marry the ONE you Love" or "Love the ONE you Marry"?
There are two questions in one depending on how you interpret the over all structure of the question and depending on which word (Love or Marriage) is emphasized.
Obviously one answer is, "It's both!" You marry someone you love and continue to love them after marriage. (Most people would agree with this answer... or eventually agree)
Another answer is, "Marry the ONE you Love". This answer comes about if you take into consideration the ORDER of things - humans generally first love then marry - love being the cause for the marriage. The exceptions being arranged marriages, and perhaps gold diggers.
And most of us wouldn't consider "Love the ONE you Marry" as an answer in the sense that "You can't force yourself to love". In other words, if the statement is a command, forget it! But some would agree that "You ought to love the ONE you marry". And by that they really mean "Make sure you love them if you marry them". Which is another way of saying "Marry the ONE you Love".
The real question is, "Do you love them?". Whether you marry them or not is not that important (or should't be) | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 8:20:33 PM | I think this kind of 'marriage' was easier to pull off when 'community' was smaller. People usually married people their family knew etc...values and life goals were similar just because these people socialized in relatively the same circles.
Fast forward to the 21st century and take a look at any city...people are from completely different backgrounds, different morals, different life experiences, diverse upbringing, etc... I think marrying a complete stranger is not only lunacy but dangerous as well...I'll stick with getting to know someone and hopefully falling in love. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 8:26:13 PM |
Love aside I think it is important to know if the relationship is functional. I say love is not enough to hold a relationship together.
Agenteightysix makes a good point that sometimes love just isn't enough to hold a relationship together. And it's even more challenging in these times since there are more options available to either party. It's takes more than love to make a relationship work but I don't think a relationship can work without love. So hands down, I would rather marry the one I love than the love the one I marry. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 8:36:18 PM | Interesting question and starfun77 I think that is a great conversation to have with your mother.
My first marriage was to my first true love and he broke my heart from infidelity. This was a short lived marriage as I had no interest in a man I could not trust.
My second marriage started out great as I believed that I was getting married to my best friend, whom I loved, respected and deeply cared for. I believed I had found the fairy tale. However, I didnt realize until much later that he had lied about many things that were important to me, that earned him my love and respect. Once again my heart was broken and after the kids were grown, I left.
I would not get married for less than love, however I am older, wiser and hope to make a better choice next time. I'm not jaded and truly believe in the power of love and being with the right person is breath taking, or does it take your breath away? I think when you are sizing up each other in a relationship, you really dont understand each other until you have experienced all the different emotions together, such as happy, sad, angry, stress, disagreement and anxiety. I actually look forward to all of these emotions as actions speak louder than words.
I will never give up! I will never judge one man based on a previous relationship, as I am not like any other woman out there, so why would I expect to be judged against the actions of another. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 8:59:32 PM |
She said doing so ensured more marriages lasts longer than these days because they basically start from ZERO and then work towards 100% whiles these days we want to START from 100% and maintain it there which is very difficult if not impossible.
She points out arranged marriages as an example.
OP -- with all due respect to your Mother, she's dead ass wrong in my books. Though her theory would seem to hold water, in her mind, it does nothing for me. I can see through her theory like it was transparent.
She blames marriages of today as being ones that start at 100% then can't hold on to it, where back in the day they married just for the sake of marriage and it lasted longer? Um yea...NOT. 
Marrying at 0% and hoping like Hell that you can learn to love the one you married is a recipe for disaster. Ever wonder why so many have forsaken the "no sex til marriage" bit? Yea, that's a big reason. You get to "try before you buy". With her theory, you get to wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first...
Hope is good - but it's unfeasible to put that into a marriage. If you go in hoping to fall for them, you fail.
The reason that so many marriages are failing is because of the radical shift in the sexes over the last generation. Who do you think initiates more than 75% of the divorces? Women...that's right. Not men...women. Who commits the most infidelity in the marriage...that's right, women. Society has imbued women with so many more conveniences and allowances over the last generation that few of them take marriage seriously anymore, if at all.
Add to that, the "me me me all about me" mentality that is equally shared between the sexes, and that all spells disaster. They meet, they fall in love, they marry, and it fails. Somewhere along the line, her allowances or one of their "me me me all about me" mentalities stuck a knife in the heart of the relationship and left it to bleed out.
THAT is why marriages fail. Not because they were in love first. Not because they didn't marry and then HOPE to fall in love. Just because there are too many allowances for marriage to be broken, no one takes their vows seriously anymore, and everyone seems to have a sense of "entitlement" these days. Like everyone owes them something.
Arranged marriages and the concept of loving the one you marry died after the Crusades. People need to wrap their head around it. Loving the one you marry ain't feasible in this day and age...marry WITH love already there or don't waste each other's time.
JMO. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 9:06:19 PM | | BigDaddyJinx, I agree with much of what you said, but you omitted that some people in marriages/relationships stop working at them. Its easy to take someone for granted, or to stop saying and doing things to please and be pleased by each other. I believe that relationships fail because for some its just not worth the work/effort to be happy and make your partner happy. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 9:19:29 PM |
BigDaddyJinx, I agree with much of what you said, but you omitted that some people in marriages/relationships stop working at them. Its easy to take someone for granted, or to stop saying and doing things to please and be pleased by each other. I believe that relationships fail because for some its just not worth the work/effort to be happy and make your partner happy
Sue -- you're right, I did omit that bit. But that's because it opens up a whole new can of worms as to what's "acceptable" as "work/effort" in a relationship.
Just using your last sentence as an example, you say it is to make your partner happy. Ok, so what does that entail exactly? Bending over backwards? Giving up freedoms? Giving up passions? Giving up activities we used to share?
All in the sake of the grand illusion that people refer to as "compromise"?
Agreed, you are right that too many couples fail to keep each other at even keel, but this all boils down to artificial standards that are bandied about. Because society says that we should do this - it means we should do this. If we don't, you are a shitty spouse. Our friends have this and that and act this and that way, and we don't...why? Well that makes you a shitty spouse. Everyone wanting what everyone else has, and they spend so little time working on their own uniqueness. They doom themselves by comparing their lives to the lives of others.
I just have to think of the worst thing I ever said in front of my ex fiancé, and without intent...but it'll be in my mind forever as a reminder...
"I hate my life. I hate all that it stands for. Nothing has gone right for me. My life is just pure shit. What do I have to be thankful for or proud of?"
Her reply...
"Thanks for saying I'm of no use or value to you at all you selfish prick. Your 'life' includes me...am I not part of your 'life'?"
I almost cried just writing that. I can't imagine ever saying something so vile to another human being. I never intended to have it mean that, but she was exactly right...she was in my life, and was a huge part of it, and I failed to acknowledge that because I wanted what everyone else had. I was more concerned with what I DIDN'T have, than what I DID have. As long as I live, I'll never again speak those words...
Your part about taking your spouse for granted...proven fact right there. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 9:25:19 PM | I had an older female friend over 25 yrs. ago who said, You marry the man who doesn't send you into tail-spins emotionally. Because in the long-run, they are consistent, not the intense type that you fall for in the beginning & it fades out quickly. Don't get me wrong... I'm still talking about LOVE here, just not the bells & whistles that used to woo me in the younger years. So Someone who is there through thick & thin, you Love, but not the major highs & lows.... I disagreed then, thought it was boring! Today, I stand corrected, & see the sense this woman was making. By the way she's still married, after 30+ yrs. & their relsp. is respectful, mature, & compatible.
So who knows really? Just thought I'd add my two cents for what it's worth. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 9:36:30 PM | Jinx - excellent point. When I said "to be happy and make your partner happy" was in reference to common respect. Doing the little things for each other, or phrasing things in a way that will not hurt the other person, such as your example of what you said about your life, in a moment of frustration and weakness. In no way was that comment meant to be about bending over backwards or being taken advantage of by the other person.
I am blessed with a patience for those around me as I try to understand what causes a person to say things that could cut, prior to reacting to their comments/actions. I try and talk things out to get an understanding of their position and find out what caused the frustration to make such a comment. Some people appreciate this and others just dont understand.
I am one of those who work hard in a relationship. I believe that if you spend a great deal of time finding that one special person, the relationship is worth the work to remain happy. I know that there are other factors that cause relationships to fail, but I cannot say that I have been lazy or neglectful to a partner. Just like in business its easier to get new customers than it is to retain the customer base you already have. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 9:51:36 PM | ~OP~ My exhusband had an arranged marriage prior to me. (Yes, it still happens in some cultures even here in America.) He stayed with her until his mother died. Within a few weeks, he filed for divorce. That told me all I needed to know about the "past" and how it was often done. I wouldn't marry again ~ but if I had to choose? I'd have to love the person I'd be marrying.  | |
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Landra
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Joined: 9/10/2007
Msg: 24 | |
| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 11:34:24 PM | Falling in love indicates that you have no control. You're "falling"- it's about emotions. Feelings. Expecting romantic love to last forever is not realistic.
It's different from entering into a relationship to form a partnership based on common goals and needs (raising children, financial stability, companionship).
The USA divorce rate is nearly 60% . Obviously there's a problem. | |
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| Would you Marry the ONE you Love or Love the ONE you Marry?
Posted: 2/23/2009 11:48:53 PM | I choose both.
The success rate was due to many things, but even if we ignore all of the other factors...
The marriages didn't succeed because they weren't in love to begin with. They succeed because they, as you put it, chose to love the one they married.
So, why not marry the one you love AND choose to love the one you marry? It seems like that would make success rates soar! | |
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