Monday, February 21, 2011

On love and marriage

So the Sqwrl went to a marriage retreat this past weekend. It became evident that marriage as a covenant rarely exists in society today. Why do people get married anyway? The Sqwrl has a friend who often asks what it will take to find an ideal mate?

Unfortunately there is no ideal answer. The variables are so enumerable and under constant change that how and when we find a person to share life with is almost infinitely impossible to achieve. The best we can do is take a chance with the hope that in 30 or 40 years we will have grown together in some idyllic manner.

The Sqwrl does know why marriages fail. They fail due to a number of different factors, actions and inactions.

#1. Marriages fail when there is no respect or love shared within the relationship. Some folks say that men need respect and women need love; that men and women are from different planets. But the Sqwrl believes that men and women are more alike than we prefer to believe. We all need love and respect.

#2. Growth. The Sqwrl is a believer in personal growth. It is such a fundamental aspect of any relationship, that when personal growth is absent the relationship will only wither or decay. A onesided relationship will never have balance and over time will only become more imbalanced. All of us have dreams. When we are children we dream of a world and of a life yet to be. When we are adults and have not fulfilled those dreams, we often find ourselves depressed wondering how we let our lives spin out of control.

#3. We are the product of our experiences.