Are Marriage Vows the Power That Drives Long-Term Success?
They can, but they are not reliable! The statistics support this: a little less than half the people in the U.S. are married, and of those, more than a third will divorce. So, clearly the vows they made were not necessarily a sustaining factor.
A few weeks ago, Marlene shared about our 40th anniversary. So, I am going to tell you about the proposal.
Marlene was a sophomore in college. I was nearly twice her age. I had been married once before, to a really lovely human being, although it was still a fairly short marriage. After we parted, I thought, “If I can’t make it with someone as great as her, maybe I am just not marriage material,” and settled into an active bachelorhood for the next several years, telling myself, “I will only marry again if I can honestly say forever!”
I met Marlene in one of the seminars I was leading and was quite enamored. So, I asked her out and we started dating. After dating for a while, I found myself thinking, “This is different. Am I in love?”
And then, at some point, we hit a roadblock and broke up. She was still young, in college, and lacked interest in a committed relationship, and I was too invested by now to just date. It was sad, yet we both understood.
For the next several months, we both had fairly active single lives, Marlene at school and I working. However, to my chagrin, I found the single life, which I had loved before, now less satisfying. I found it difficult to build a sustainable relationship with the people I was going out with. Then I had someone pushing me for some kind of commitment, which I wanted to give, yet struggled with.
In that struggle, it finally dawned on me: No way, I had chosen Marlene.
This was a quandary. We had barely spoken in months. After a lot of thought, my solution was to ask her to marry me, recognizing I had said I would not do that unless I could say “forever.” After much introspection, I resolved I could.
I was pretty certain she would decline, but that was OK too. However, she responded, I would move forward.
So, I invited her over. When she got there, I told her I wanted to have a conversation, to which she replied, “Nothing serious please, I just want to have fun.”
Hmmm, a dubious start!
So, I cleared my mind, refocused on my purpose, and said, “I request you marry me, before the end of the year!” She just sat there looking stunned and stared at me.
So before she could say anything, I said, “If you accept, I promise I will never leave, and I promise I will love you forever. I promise you, you will always be happy!” She still just stared at me.
“I promise I will listen to you and I will not tell you what to do.”
I made several more promises, and somewhere along here, her mouth dropped open. So I forged on, and at this time it was not my head talking, but my heart.
“If you accept, we will have blonde-haired children with blue eyes who run like the wind” (Marlene is blonde, blue-eyed, and was a runner), “and I promise our life will be adventurous.”
At this point, still staring with an open mouth, she said, “Wow!”
Now highly motivated, I surged on with several more promises.
Later, she told me the one that got her was, “I promise our life will be about something bigger than ourselves,” which I followed with, “I promise you the greatest love story told!”
She looked at me and said, “YES!”
I said, “For sure?”
“YES!”
“Absolutely sure?”
“YES!”
Without thinking, I went for a reclose.
“Who shall we tell first?”
Marlene and Craig's 39th wedding anniversary
The next 40 years were about living up to the promises I made, several of which I did not even remember. That proposal lasted a couple of hours. Nothing was scripted. It was just being sure of purpose and letting my heart speak the commitments I could own.
After the final yes, I told her it was my job to keep those promises, and it was her job to let me know if she ever felt like I was not, and my final promise was to immediately correct if she did.
In many ways, that proposal and the work that followed taught me pretty much everything I needed to know about life.
If you live from purpose, it will keep you on track, correct you when you are off path, pick you up when you're down, serve others, and bring you joy.
Purpose thrives on promises.
Promises give guidance, and those kept empower your word.
I believe we all have a purpose within. Our job in life is to find it and live it. The promises I made to Marlene that night have trained me in business, in relationships, and toward my children, who inherited those same commitments.
As I look back on those 40 years, there have been our share of challenges, ups and downs, love and laughter, and a rich life. I now check my purpose before starting even the smallest tasks, and then assess whether I am reliable enough to deliver before I promise.
It was not the marriage vows we made that gave our marriage strength; it was the promises made before that got us to the altar.
My purpose here was to share something, although personal and intimate, that opened a door for you. Maybe to examine your purpose.
Can you let me know?
Thanks and Blessings,
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