Marriage..Really?

As I got up this morning to start, the repetitiveness that has become my adult life, something was lingering. It possibly could have been the dreary weather, and the early morning still nipping at my heels. Maybe it was the cool exchange my significant other and I had from the night before, but the nagging question that kept popping up was, Marriage, really? I sense the immediate backlash from any female reader of this post, but try to stay with me for just a little bit - eventually, you'll find, that you'll actually like where I'm going. Either way, my thought, the heightened sense of questioning, had everything to do with this industry of marriage. Why do we do this? What is the unstoppable urge to dive into a union that has a 50% fail rate? If this statistic were applied anywhere else in our lives we wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. It is the most difficult thing, we as individuals, can possibly face in a life time. It presses, stretches, and tests every last nerve to the point of melt down - and sometimes we do. My first thought was that we do this because of the ULTIMATE fear of being alone. But I don't understand this notion, I never have and it's quite possibly the pessimist surging to the surface to put a dark spin on something most see as beautiful. The stance I take is that we all end up alone in the end on some level. We either live longer than the rest of our loved ones or end up waiting out the twilight of our lives with smiling strangers. The other possibility is that we become ill and die with our closest loved ones around us. But that is a journey you ultimately have to take a lone. I do realize that kind of thought is a little morbid but let’s face the facts here. So marriage, really? Why do we do this to ourselves? Women, you end up not finding the knight in shining armor that you've dreamt of sense you were able to walk. Even worse, you'll eventually come to the realization that you will never be able to 'FIX' us and the cool wind of bitterness will start to swirl. Men, come on fellas - what is there really to say about us? We're disgusting, unappreciative, and most of us can't figure out that we, too, cannot 'FIX' women. Even the makeup of the two sides is formulated against the better good! We men want to fix things and then move on. When you're upset ladies, and I'm sure you can attest to this, we don't listen for what the situation made you 'feel' rather hear the resolution to the problem and attempt to solve it. This, clearly, is not what you desire. Women; you are emotional creatures. When things go awry it's not about how to solve the problem as much it is about how it affected you emotionally. Again I ask, marriage, really? As I was going through my morning routine pondering these things.. I started to feel this enormous pressure. I am married, I love my wife and God bless her, she loves me. But how and why did we do this to one another. One would have to imagine that life was so much easier without having to tend to another for the rest of your days. What I found, and many of you probably already knew this, was that all of those negative things I mentioned - they're easily spun into the positive. We chose marriage because we don't want to be alone, sure. But we chose our partner, I chose my wife, because she was the ONE person on this planet that I could stomach all of those negative things with. She too, hopefully, chose to cope with all of the flaws that envelope my character and attempt to 'fix', 'understand', or not worry about those and love me regardless. Many of you that know me probably think she is crazy, I would say this venture alone is more deserving of a Nobel Prize than some others that I'm not going to mention. The fact of the matter is, yes marriage is hard. It can make you want to literally strangle the other or yourself at times. But the other side is the experience. The experience the two share as they walk together through this life. I've found that Lacey and I are stronger together than we are apart. I've found that I feel more, I believe more, and I want more with her than I did alone. So upon these realizations things started to shift in my small mind and become a bit clearer, a bit more positive. The questions started to change into answers and reasons as opposed to doubts and concerns. I find myself lucky, very lucky really, to have someone like Lacey by my side. So as I rode off to work my final thought was... Marriage, really!