I have to admit something. I’m looking forward to the court date. I’m happy to have it, and I can’t wait for the closure that it will bring.
I’ve shared this feelings with my friends, mostly via IM, and have gotten a lot of mixed responses that I wasn’t expecting. It dulled my excitement a bit, that my friends were sometimes put off, or were confused about how they should react, or were uncomfortable.
I could see mutual friends being uncomfortable… no, scratch that. As far as I understand things, both parties should be looking forward to this closure.
I want to rant about this. I want to rave. Did some people hold hope out? Trying to ignore that it was happening? Trying to forget about it, or pretend it doesn’t exist?
Could be a more reasonable explanation. Maybe people are uncomfortable with endings, especially with marriages ending. With over half of them ending, and the statistic growing worse every year, (I now hear with absolute clarity the hollowness of the “sanctity of marriage” argument against gay marriage.) I can’t imagine that it’s something unfamiliar.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s happening so much, and the hope for lifelong matehood has been worn so thin, that another divorce might just snap the thread. Maybe another one so close makes it a greater thread to hope. I know that I was intent on it lasting for the rest of my life. I know, at the beginning, that she was, as well. She was determined not to repeat the mistakes of her parents, as she said it, and I was determined to emulate mine.
So, with a pledge of lifelong partnership ending far before the end of life, what value does the pledge then hold for others? What value does it hold for me in the future?
I think maybe it’s that first question that’s bugging the people around me.
It’s the second one that is of paramount importance to me at this very moment.
“So, with a pledge of lifelong partnership ending far before the end of life, what value does the pledge then hold…?”
that’s the question i always had about marriage. i’ve yet to hear a good answer.
a lot of marriages look to everyone like bad ideas from the start. yours wasn’t one of those.
that’s what makes the ending uncomfortable for others, i think.
as i understand it, everyone wants to believe that lifelong love and partnership is possible for someone, even if it isn’t necessarily for them personally.
it’s a symbol of hope.
one that has fallen.