BRYCE ON MARRIAGE
– Like the Tango, marriage can be a thing of beauty if you and your partner are in synch.
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I first wrote this piece ten years ago. As a Notary Public in Florida, I have had the pleasure of marrying a few couples along the way. Before marrying them, I admonish them of the old expression, “It takes two to Tango,” which I will explain herein. As my daughter approaches her wedding day, I thought it would be a good idea to remind both her and her fiance of what this means. I hope you enjoy it.
After seeing so many marriages end in divorce, you cannot help but wonder why couples get married in the first place. Maybe they see it as some kind of legal permission slip to do nothing more than to have sex. If so, that seems to be rather shallow thinking to me. I tend to believe most people get married to quell the biological clock in their heads to reproduce. Under this scenario, husband and wife are doomed to failure after their mission has been fulfilled. There are probably dozens of reasons for getting divorced, but regardless, I think most people go into marriage with impractical expectations and hidden incompatibilities that are slow to surface.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about marriage is that it is easy; that by simply getting married all of your difficulties you experienced as a single person will somehow disappear. Hardly. If anything, your problems are only beginning as you have to learn to live with a new person unfamiliar with your customs, mannerisms, and lifestyle. I have yet to meet the couple who was perfectly compatible at the time of taking their marriage vows. Regardless of how long you may have lived with someone prior to marriage, you really don’t know the person until it becomes “legal.”
A lot of people fail to grasp that marriage is a partnership. This disturbs me greatly. With me, I have always compared it to the Tango. It involves forming a team which works together towards common goals and objectives, until we learn to dance as one. True, each person has their own unique duties and responsibilities, but to make such a partnership work, it is necessary for some give and take which some people can accept and adapt to, while others cannot. This means you cannot always do the things you did unilaterally when you were single. Now you must consider and consult your partner. Like any business venture, you must do what is best for both parties, not just one. This is the part of marriage most people do not understand. Any time one party ignores or excludes consideration for the other, the marriage is doomed.
If you have any doubt whatsoever about getting married, don’t do it. You must go into it with both eyes wide open and possess a genuine willingness to try to work together. Anything less will inevitably result in either an unhappy marriage or a nasty divorce.
So, my only advice to young people considering marriage, always be cognizant of the expression, “It takes two to Tango.” If you do it right, it can be a thing of beauty.
Keep the Faith!
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Tim Bryce is an author, freelance writer and the Managing Director of M&JB Investment Company (M&JB) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has over 40 years of experience in the management consulting field. He can be reached at [email protected]
For Tim’s columns, see: timbryce.com
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Copyright © 2020 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.
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