Your wedding vows, have you ever gone back and re-read them?

Do you remember your wedding vows and have you ever gone back and read them again? 

Having declared your intent at your wedding, the officiant probably said something like this — I’ll use Janet and George for ease in the hopes you’ll do the obvious and replace them with your own names:

“Janet and George since it is your intention to marry, please join your right hands, and with your promises bind yourselves to each other as husband and wife:

Please repeat after me….

I, George, take you, Janet, to be my wife; and I promise, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.

Janet, will you repeat these vows after me: 

I, Janet, take you, George, to be my husband; and I promise, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.”

This many years later, be it 2 or 20 or 60 years later, how are you doing when it comes to keeping those sacred vows?

If your story is beautiful and brave or sad and brutal, or a mix of all….

Please let me know. I want to hear from you.

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Posted on September 6, 2023 at 5:05 am in Difficult Relationships   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

3 Comments to “Your wedding vows, have you ever gone back and re-read them?”

1. 
   Jean
   September 6, 2023 at 5:46 am

   Such wisdom and truth comes from the pen of yours dear Rod. 👏🏻🙌🏻💕

   Reply
2. 
   Michael Taylor-Broderick
   September 7, 2023 at 1:06 am

   Hi Rod, I hope you are well.

   I have just subscribed to your online column and 3 days later the post I woke up to concerned marriage and the vows that come with it, your timing couldn’t have been better.

   I have been married for 13 years, we have two beautiful boys, aged 9 and 11. My wife Stacey and I no longer talk. We exchange pleasantries some times and there is discourse on household matters, can you fetch the kids, etc, etc. Beyond that our lives are completely separate, I do not know what she does during the day or how she fills up her time. She has no idea how my days are filled either, be it work or personal. I came across a post by an acquaintance of mine on FB recently that disturbed me (and still does). Her post thanked her husband of over 20 years for his guidance and support during their recent journey towards ‘conscious uncoupling’ (they have two sons who have completed school). Is it that simple to unravel years and years of commitment, turmoil, connection, happiness, unhappiness, (the list is endless) by selecting a few choice words. My instinct tells me that I am disturbed by this post because before long this will be considered normal. Yes, more and more couples are divorcing but for it to be considered as an enlightened act (to me that’s what conscious uncoupling suggests) is NOT OKAY. I don’t want to get divorced despite the alienated state Stacey and I find ourselves in, the question is, what if she wants out, conscious uncoupling sounds so cool when explaining to friends why you are no longer living together. I fear for my marriage, I fear losing my family because the world at large is making it normal practice for a couple to part ways when times get tough. My parents were married for 52 years, I don’t know all that they went through but I do know that it wasn’t always like a wonderful walk in the park. Perhaps we should be placing more emphasis on ‘conscious coupling’, and digging deeper to get through the most difficult times.

   It would be unfair of me to tell my side of the story where our marriage is concerned as Stacey has a side too, and it needs to be heard. We are both strong individuals when it comes to our opinions on the world and how we should be living in it, these opinions become more important to us when it’s only Stacey and I in the room. I read this somewhere, “it’s the hardest thing to love someone the way they want to be loved.” I believe this is at the heart of our alienation.

   We are where we are right now and it’s not good, I’d love us to move forward and beyond this to a happier place together. What I can’t see myself doing is sitting down and being told everything I’ve done wrong since we got married, I just don’t have the capacity for that right now. I don’t consider myself to have a ‘victim mentality’ so the above statement doesn’t come from that place. I just know that I haven’t lived up to Stacey’s expectations/ opinions of what she expected of a husband. As partners go I am doing the best I can with the skill set I have and know, but, she needs more. I know she feels I don’t support and respect and acknowledge her enough and I feel she doesn’t support or acknowledge me, how did we get to this, is it because we so easily take each other for granted and as a result we forget to nurture each other.

   I wish we could just dial back to the time before the deathly silences that own us when we’re alone together, I wish we could both be less intent on fighting for our opinions on the world. I believe I can give up my right to be right but I don’t need that decision to be analysed, perhaps that’s the problem. Please help.

   Thank you for reading this, have a beautiful day, regards, Michael.

   PS I may have sent this twice in error, apologies.

   Reply
   • 
     Anonymous
     September 7, 2023 at 2:04 am

     Michael:

     1. Thank you, 2. I’ve read your letter twice, 3. You’re a fabulous writer, 4. It’s 2:55am (I woke to let Duke out), 5. I thank you for letting me in to a concept I’ve never heard about to this point, 6. I recall meting you and Stacey (do you remember?) – even more than once, 7. There’s more, but having arrived from Europe a few hours ago, I’m going to reply more fully to you via email. Ok? It’s going to be a few days. Ok? Thank you so much for writing to me. I recall too when your second son was born. Have a great day. Also, I went to a show in Worcester (Western Cape) and met a good friend of yours. Highest regards,

     Rod Smith.

     Reply