July 30th. This is my wedding anniversary. My husband died two years ago but it seems appropriate to pause and remember. Today it is raining but on that day 44 years ago it was glorious sunshine. Funnily enough the week before had been quite wet and grey but on the 30th the clouds parted, the sun shone and we had a glorious day.  Weddings were rather different affairs in the 1970s: much simpler and less elaborate but just as special. In many ways there was less choice. You either married in church or in a registry office and receptions were generally  held in local hotels.  We were surrounded by forty friends and family members and set off on honeymoon later that day to the Lake District!  There is much to be said for  simpler celebrations. I can’t help but feel that many modern weddings have become occasions for showing off and demonstrating wealth and extravagance. It might be a good thing that the pandemic has curbed some of the pressure to produce the magical day of a lifetime and to spend a vast amount of money in the process. But perhaps I am being overly puritanical!! 

Nonetheless a wedding day for most couples is a deeply meaningful, enjoyable and sacred day. It is a day for celebrating love and for making a commitment to each other. It is probably true that the vast majority of people entering a marriage have the intention of remaining committed to each other. Yet currently in the UK around 42% or marriages end in divorce. And for many that is an extremely painful process.  So it is interesting to reflect on why that might be the case. Why might so many people make promises to be faithful and yet ultimately find that they cannot remain together?  I do not claim to know the answer but I do have a few thoughts about it!!

I think our story about marriage begins with the notion of the romantic relationship; of falling in love.  There is no question that falling in love is glorious and intoxicating. Life feels transformed. Thought is dominated by ‘the other’. When apart you long for each other and being together makes you feel so very alive. So often this is accompanied by the feeling that the other person is in some sense your ‘soul mate’ and that in some way they serve to complete you and make you whole. Meaning, fulfilment, purpose and joy are all found in the presence of ‘the other’.  Yet rarely does this last and for most couples a day arrives when that bubble bursts. Suddenly ‘the other’ no longer appears quite so perfect. They do things which are irritating. Characteristics which at first seemed charming or amusing can become annoying. The pressures of work, of finance and of children can begin to create strains in the relationship and there can be a sense that something has been lost.

I suspect that we need more than a story of romance for a marriage to survive and to be happy.  I think we also need a story of friendship. We tend to view friends in a slightly different light to lovers. We do not see a friend as necessary to complete us. We meet with  good friends as equals who enjoy each other’s company. A friend is respected and their differences from us acknowledged. We do not expect a friend to change their behaviour or their preferences to suite us. Yet often people expect their life partner to somehow compensate for what are, in fact, their own deficiencies or problems.

However, I do wonder how marriages and intimate relationships might change in coming years and whether the high divorce rate is actually a reflection of the fact that, for many people, lifetime monogamy is no longer what they choose, nor is it appropriate or even desirable.  Perhaps the model of the nuclear family is about to crumble. Is it really the optimum environment for raising children?  Is it appropriate to promise to remain faithful to one person for the rest of your life?  We already seem to be a society where many children have quite extended families with step-parents and step-siblings. Maybe couples need to negotiate a different kind of understanding which is less binding and more freeing? This would not be a licence for selfishness but rather an acknowledgement of the wider range of needs which cannot be satisfied purely by one person?

I have been dipping into the writings of Jorge Ferrer. He is a transpersonal psychologist who has recently written a book entitled “Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory (Diverse Sexualities, Genders and Relationships). He raises the possibility that “behind the inability to exclusively commit to a single person for life or an indefinite period of time, there may be emerging wisdom at play.” His argument is too lengthy and complex for me to try to summarise here but I find the notion of relaxing some of accepted societal rules about how relationships should be managed refreshing. 

Divorce is not failure.  Sustained marriage is not success. In many ways we are all struggling to negotiate a rapidly changing world and that includes the ways in which we demonstrate and share the many forms of love which we all experience. 

https://thefield.aleftrust.org/love-and-freedom-transcending-monogamy-and-polyamory/