The institution of marriage is under attack and it is time to go to war! I’ve held a few different discussions on social media about the topic of marriage and I have been surprised about the overwhelmingly negative responses and perceptions that are associated with marriage. It used to be that marriage was a beautiful thing and represented true commitment and companionship, next level loving under God, and a family structure ideal for raising our future generation of kids. So what happened? Where did we go wrong and how do we get back to what marriage used to be? Those are the three questions I hope to answer by the end of this article! I preface this by saying that I know this article does not represent every marriage, but based on the discussions I am having daily about marriage this is the perspective that is manifesting in the current generation. If perception is reality then it’s time to go to war…come follow me!
So…what happened? What happened was that we became more selfish and less accountable. For some reason the idea of marriage went from being about a commitment under God to $60,000 weddings, $10,000 wedding dresses and people saying “Yes to the Dress!” instead of yes to the marriage! What happened was that marriage became more about what you could get out of it than what you could put into it. What happened was that people started marrying people without actually knowing them, divorcing six months later, and then blaming the institution of marriage for their failure. What happened was that married people began airing out all their dirty laundry while burying all of the clean laundry all while giving marriage a bad smell. Yup in a nutshell I believe that’s what happened.
So where did we go wrong? Well we went wrong when our friends became the center of our marriages instead of God. We went wrong when we thought that every day in marriage would be perfect, thus when we had our first argument we decided that marriage was just too hard. We went wrong when we decided that we would shack up first, have sex first, have a few kids first, then get married and then wonder why marriage wasn’t so “exciting!” We went wrong when we started devaluing the institution so much that we began to glorify and embrace the idea of side dudes, side chicks, and mistresses not realizing we were driving a stake right in the hearts of our marriages. We went wrong when we decided that marriage was all about us. When we decided kids didn’t need healthy two parent households because we were more concerned with the idea of having a baby rather than focusing on the task of actually raising that baby. Yup in a nutshell that’s where we went wrong.
How do we get marriage back to what it used to be? Well let’s start with understanding that marriage is a covenant under God that should be taken seriously. We can start by dating the right way and actually getting to know someone before we decide to marry them. We can start by managing the expectations about marriage and knowing that everyday won’t be perfect, but we can make every day be worth it. We can start with married people not blaming the institution of marriage for their short comings and instead being accountable and CHOOSING to be happy people within the institution of marriage. We can start with happily married people being on the advertisements instead of bitter unhappily married people being the poster children. We can start with realizing that marriage is about more than how we feel at the moment and more about what we build for the future. Marriage is still a beautiful institution and even though it’s under attack; for the sake of our children and our communities we must do what it takes to protect it.
BMWK — Why do you think that marriage has begun to have such a negative connotation?