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Friday, February 22, 2013

Never Say Always?

The young man calling was dismayingly common: he and his fiancee, with whom he had three children, were looking for couple's counseling. We ran into dat ole debbil moolah right away: I'm not eligible for Medicaid/Medicare, Husky, Title 19 or any of the  state insurance programs, and they couldn't afford even the minimum on my sliding scale.
But then he acknowledged they were just shopping anyway, so I could only suspect that they (or at least he) were just going through the motions.
It still raised the issue of relationships today. Ironically, at the same time that marriage equality has become an international battlecry for the LGBT community, straight heterosexual marriage has been more and more pushed aside especially by the younger  generation. The much-bandied-about statistic that nearly half of all marriages end in the divorce courts ignores the increasing number of couples who view matrimony as an expensive and extraneous institition. Justifying the lack of a wedding ring or marriage certificate as unnecessary for two people who are truly commited to one another, they move in together and go through very similar stages to their legally married brethren and sistern: buying property, having children, loving and fighting and reconciling like any husband and wife.
Of course, given the rocky status of matrimony, it should  be no surprise that the next generation might be wary of it. There is also a deep suspicion and rejection of traditional institutions such as marriage; we have a society that doesn't trust itself or any of the mechanisms which traditionally hold society together.
Inasmuch, as I said before, such couples might discard some of the legal ties (matrimony) but not others (property, children), it seems that people are being people and consistently inconsistent. Or may be it is a resistance to commitment.
Misunderstanding the reality of any relationship that no one is  signing on for forever, or at least shouldn't, couples should realize that,like everything that works in life, marrage is only for today, Carrying the issues of yesterday or worrying about potential issues of tomorrow keeps us from dealing with what is happening right here and right now. Otherwise, there will always be that little voice in the background that whispers, "You could always leave."
In any relationship, there will be days when things turn toxic. If we have made a commitment to keep trying, that is as much as anyone can do.

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