Well, here's my whole view of marriage, and though I'm not married myself, I know plenty of people with healthy lasting marriages, as well as those who've had their marriages crumble, so I've seen both sides.

From my perspective, marriage should be a lifelong commitment. It's not a commitment to be entered into lightly, nor for just the sake of convenience. I also believe that it represents a spiritual reality, something different than just a regular promise to someone. Does marriage change people? Absolutely, and I think it should. When/if I get married, I want my husband to be someone who is always challenging me to grow and mature as a person, and to excel in all areas of my life, and I hope that I'd be able to do the same for him. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and I think the beauty of a marriage relationship is being able to recognize that these things can be complementary to each other.

One of the reasons I think that marriages fail is because people don't see it as a lifelong commitment anymore. They go to the altar and say, "till death do us part" but think in the back of their minds, "If things go wrong, we can just get a divorce." We live in a culture where everything is about instant gratification. People have a sense of entitlement to get whatever they want whenever they want it. They want to get married, so they get married. They want a divorce, they get a divorce. It doesn't really mean anything to them.

Another thing that contributes to divorce is that it's the easy way out. It's much easier to just get out of the marriage altogether instead of working through their issues together. I have no illusions that marriage is always going to be jellybeans and rainbows. The truth is that it requires a certain amount of work. Loving someone isn't just a feeling, it's a lifestyle. If I "feel" in love with my hypothetical husband, but don't respect him with my actions, then I don't really love him. Emotions are unreliable, and a true test of love is how you treat someone even on those days when you're cranky and grumpy, and don't especially feel like loving them, but you choose to treat them with love anyhow. When/if I decide to enter into a marriage commitment, I'm fully prepared for there to be misunderstandings, fights, failings, issues from the past that will come between us. But I'm determined not to run from these things, rather to work through them together and I know that the relationship will be all the more stronger and deeper because of that. I don't want a relationship based upon selfishness, the "what can I get out of this" attitude. I want a marriage where my heart is for my husband to excel and be the best, and to have that be his heart for me, no matter what happens.

When a relationship stops growing, when it becomes stagnant, that's the beginning of things starting to break down. When people refuse to change, refuse to listen to another point of view, their marriages become strangled by pride and bitterness. Sometimes these things start really small and people don't even recognize it until it's too late. They put off dealing with things, and suddenly a small problem has become a large problem and then they're signing divorce papers and working out custody agreements. I think that people who have really successful marriages are those who have been vigilant about catching and dealing with those problems at the beginning. They're proactive about guarding their marriage, and determined to keep a healthy relationship. It needs to go both ways though. Both people need to have this attitude or else the relationship becomes one-sided and unbalanced.

Maybe I sound overly idealistic, but I've seen really successful marriages like that, and I want mine to be one of them. When/if I get married I'll let you guys know if I achieve these goals, lol.

So anyhow, marriage isn't the be-all and end-all of my life like it is for some people. I think it would be cool to be married provided I found a person I'd be willing to spend my life with, but I'm not in a hurry and certainly don't want to rush into it. I don't want to have kids, so I don't feel the pressure that some women do to find a husband before they're past their prime child-birthing years. I could probably write another whole paragraph on my view of marriage as it pertains to children and family, but it's getting late, and this post is already too long. So yeah, I'm pretty content to ride out this adventure of my life wherever it takes me, and if it takes me to someone who'll join me for the rest of the ride, that's awesome, but if not, whatever, I'm still having fun =)