“Till Death do us Part” or “Till the end of our Forever?” You can re-choose your marriage!

 “Till Death do us Part” or “Till the end of our Forever?”  You can re-choose your marriage!

 

First I want to say that some people use the expression “Till the end of our Forever” to mean even beyond death; forever meaning to eternity.  For the sake of this article, I am referring to the duration of your relationship in this lifetime in your current human forms.

That being said, I would like to share about the difference between the two statements, till death… and till the end of our forever…

 

 

There are many different kinds of marriages, many different reasons why people get married.  The day I met my husband, I fell in such deep love so quickly that I couldn’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with him, and he felt the same way.   I jumped into my marriage with both feet (so I thought) when I became pregnant.  I thought was I was saying, “Till death do us part” on the wedding day, but I was really saying “Till the end of our forever”.    The truth is that what I was really saying was, till death do us part, as long as it ‘s working for both of us, as long as we’re both doing everything we can possibly be doing to make it work, including but not limited to couples counseling and working on ourselves individually.

 

 

As much as I could know at that time, I knew that I wanted this man, whatever came with him, including 2 other marriages and 8 other children, an alternative lifestyle and a very eccentric personality (his, of course!).  I have a joke about getting your potential life partner’s resume and astrological chart before you jump into the marriage.  The truth is that, had I known then what I know now, I still would have married him, maybe just not a quickly.  I love all of him.  There have been things that have made the marriage challenging at times, but what relationship doesn’t have its share of challenges?  Those challenging times have made the marriage stronger. 

 

 

As a result of being fully committed to the marriage and working on myself individually and on our marriage together, I have learned how to be a friend to my husband.    I have learned unconditional love.  I have learned how to be there for someone like never before, how to stick around during the tough times.  I have learned how to let someone into my life in a way like I never have before.    And I am growing tremendously from this level of trust and intimacy.  

 

 

The difference between till death do us part and the end of our forever did not become clear to me until we had been married for about ten years.  We reached the end of our forever the first time at about ten years of marriage.  We gradually realized that the passion had left our marriage, the flame had gone out and we had become like roommates having sex, ships passing in the night.  We had to do some real soul searching and work on ourselves individually and as a couple.  After some really deep and difficult work, we re-chose our marriage and one another and came back to an even deeper, richer relationship.  Since that time, we have continued to work on ourselves and our relationship, re-choosing the relationship a few times and each time, experiencing a deeper more authentic connection.  It’s a difficult process and I’ll admit that sometimes, I have tried to ignore the problems and challenges, hoping they would just somehow go away.  But since we have had such a great relationship, it’s hard to not have that; hard to settle for less so I continue on, growing in this seminar called marriage.

I Was Never Going to get Married

I was never going to get married

 I set out on a quest in my early twenties to discover why people get married.  I could not understand and did not see most people having a good time of it.  My quest, over the next 10 or so years took me to therapy, books, questioning friends and professionals in various fields, such as psychology, education all the way to my mom, and the divine, and deep into my soul.

 

As I sit here and write today, 25 years later, over 21 years into a very challenging and rewarding marriage, challenging not because of my husband, but challenging because of who I am and how I live my life as a conscious, awake, aware person; I finally have an answer to the question, “Why get married?”

 

I feel my eyes well up with tears, becoming clear about how important it is for me to finally share my experience.  I have explored many topics, all around healthy relationships.  I did extensive research on the relationship between chronic illness in women and the devaluations of the feminine.  I discovered that, we as women devalue the feminine aspect of ourselves as we try to fit into the masculine world and make it work.  We devalue, deny, and even abandon our feminine aspects.  And as a result, we allow ourselves to remain way too long in unhealthy relationships with others.   As a result, we experience chronic illnesses which occur more often in women.  After this research, I focused on learning how to function in the linear, masculine, left- brain world in which I was living.  I wrote a book about the holistic approach to time management, balancing the right and left-brain experience of life.

 

And finally, my husband and I together, wrote a book called Yoga Heart Meditative Movement, a book about finding the heart in all things, the journey back to the heart.  All these books have been leading to my current work and research. 

 

I can practically feel my body vibrating off the couch with excitement as clarity comes to me about my message.  Who knew that when I set out on my quest to discover why people get married, I would be writing about my own experience 25 years later?

Marriage is the Greatest Seminar You Will Ever Experience

Marriage is the best seminar you will ever attend.  It offers opportunities for growth that no other relationship can offer, that is, if you are both in it, playing “full out”.  If you are not both in it, it can be the loneliest, saddest place you will ever be.

 

For most of my younger life, I thought I had made a conscious decision that I was never going to get married or have children.  I just never imagined I would find a man that I would want to spend the rest of my life with.  And I definitely didn’t want a “husband” based on the role models I saw growing up like the “husband” in “Father Knows Best” or “Leave it to Beaver”.  22 years ago, I found myself meeting a man without whom I could not imagine not spending the rest of my life.  Imagine that!  So here we were, getting ready to get married, me, having never been or even really wanting to be married before this point, not knowing that I didn’t know the first thing about marriage; him, having been married twice before, knowing more about what he didn’t want a marriage to be than what he did want it to be.

 

The past 20 years have been such a rich journey of learning about marriage, from actually being married, to creating personalized ceremonies and officiating at marriage ceremonies, to doing pre-marital coaching and workshops for couples, to doing marriage enrichment workshops and marriage counseling.   I have learned some very important things about marriage.  I have learned, “Why get married?”  I have learned what makes a healthy, happy “Whole Heart” marriage.  I have learned that there is a difference between “Till death do us part” and “Till the end of our forever”.  I understand the statement “Till death do us part, as long as it’s working for both of us”. And I have learned that we must re-choose our partner and our marriage many times throughout our lives because if we are really changing and growing our relationship is constantly evolving.  I have learned these things through my own experiences as well as the experiences of hundreds of couples with whom I have worked and the research from experts I have studied.

 

One of the most important things I have come to believe is that as we process through relationships on our path toward finding the one we choose to marry, we pick up one relationship right where we left the last one.  It’s like we’re really having one relationship our whole lives with different people in different bodies.  And the truth is that the one relationship, the biggy is with ourselves.  Each person that we interact with mirrors aspects of ourselves.  We are multi-faceted individuals, with many different parts and sides, just like a prism.  As each person touches us, they ignite something in us, cause us to glow in a certain way, glow, sparkle and shine.  And sometimes they block our light or the block the light from us.   That’s when you know something is wrong; when your light is no longer shining.

When Your Light in your Marriage Isn’t Shining Anymore

First you want to discover why your light isn’t shining.  Are you blocking yourself or is it the other person blocking your light?  I believe you might as well figure out your part with the person you’re with before you move on, learn what you came together with this person to learn.   Because if you leave before you learn what your part is, you will just re-create the same relationship issues with the next person and the next and the next until you get it!

 

Have you ever heard the phrase, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?”  In other words 1+1 is greater than 2 in the world of physics.  The synergy that two people create by bringing their energies together can be amazing.  It can be greater than anything either one of them could have accomplished on their own or with any other person.  It can be great for both people and it can bring both people to a higher place than they could have come to on their own.  This is a powerful union.  If both people are willing, they can cause each other to grow tremendously.

 

The problems occur when one person is not willing to grow or is not as committed as the other.  They can work at it for a while, but at some point the one who is not as committed to their personal growth will feel pushed and pressured and the other one will feel frustrated and both may feel resentful.  Hopefully there is ebb and flow to the relationship, just as there is an ebb and flow to the ocean, in fact, to everything in life.  The two people may not always be growing at the same pace or in the same direction but hopefully, there is some sort of rhythm to it, and eventually they catch up for periods of time.   And at those times, the connection, the joy is great.

 

This is how we cause each other to grow.  One person experiences new awareness, insights  and discoveries, shares with the other and inspires, challenges or causes them to change and expand, first unconsciously, then in consciousness and then in actions.

 

The thing is that we cannot expect the other person to change and grow.   In order for there to be a safe environment for both people in the relationship, a level of acceptance must exist.  Each person must accept the other exactly as they are if the couple has any hope of growing together.  

 

One person in the relationship may be so overpowering or controlling, actually full of fear that they cause the other person’s light to shine dimly or not at all.  This is when it is time to seek help.  I suggest seeking help rather than leaving because it is important for each person to know what their part is in the problem.  How are you allowing your light to be diminished by the other person?  How is the other person causing your light to diminish?  How are you participating in diminishing their light?