In the presence of greatness

barrelmakersdaughter.com ♦ June 30, 2013 ♦ 1 Comment

We each choose what and who we hold in esteem, that which we deem to be greatness. I was blessed yesterday to be in the presence of what I consider just that: I was privileged to attend a celebration for a 40th wedding anniversary. Given my age and my unmarried status, it is a milestone I will never have the honor of experiencing. So while I silently grieve that which will be impossible for me to know personally, I am always filled with happiness when a couple is feted for achieving a benchmark in marriage.

I am the first to acknowledge that not all unions are healthy. Those that are abusive in any form (physical, verbal, emotional, etc.) or involve financial deceit or substance abuse are decidedly unhealthy, and remaining in a relationship like that is dangerous. We just don’t know what is going on behind the closed door of someone else. As I feverishly worked to save my brief, horribly unhealthy second marriage of a decade ago, I am embarrassed to admit a huge motivator was worrying about what people would think. I worked so hard to keep people from knowing what was going on in my home. It took the therapist saying to me, “Cathy, you are living in Crazy-ville and you need to let people know what is happening. Your friends and family who love you would never want you to be in this situation.” While I slowly shared bits and pieces with a few close to me, I still tried to “fix” the marriage, thinking that being divorced a second time was worse than staying in “Crazy-ville.” A wake-up moment for me was in couples therapy. Instead of answering the repeated questions of the therapist, my former spouse said “I may have done and said things to lead Cathy to believe I am someone other than who I am.” He also made faces at the therapist while in session (which she admitted was a first for her!) and had no interest in sharing who he really was in order to work on the marriage. That, in conjunction with a general fear for the safety for myself and my daughters (I never dreamed I would have to run and lock myself in a room while my stepson chased his Dad with a knife yelling, “I’m going to f***ing kill you” over and over, but I did) helped me face reality quickly that some unions are not appropriate to continue. That one, and so many others, are just not safe places to be.

What I find to be greatness is those couples who make their unions a safe, loving and supportive environment for each other. Where all three entities involved–each person as an individual and the relationship itself–are healthy and encouraged to achieve his/her/its full potential. That’s a tall order. But it is why I hold people who make this work in high esteem. They “get it.” They understand what makes life special. They have made a life with a partner and weathered the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. They have made a commitment and turned it into a positive, beautiful, life-enhancing fortress against the storms of life. Together they stand in unity against the outside world. Every day they choose each other again to walk through life.

So I try to focus on quality, not quantity. I will never get to have a celebration such as the beautiful one I attended yesterday. But I still want that ultimate commitment from another human being. I still want to be important enough to someone else that they can move past the hurts and betrayals that others have inflicted on them and hold me in enough esteem, love and respect to make a full commitment to me. I wish this not only for myself, but for all my friends, both heterosexual and homosexual–to find that depth of love with a partner and to marry.

Life is short, precious and fragile. And sometimes, if you are lucky, you get to experience the greatness of committed love in its ultimate form, marriage.