Everyone Marries A Stranger.

There it was, the thought we’ve all tried to shut down immediately, “everyone marries a stranger.” As fully grown intelligent adults we would love to believe that we know the person we get intimately involved with. The reality, however, is that the divorce rates say otherwise. We don’t really know what we are getting into when we say, “I do.”

Putting a ring on someone’s finger doesn’t exactly say that because a diamond will last the long run the bride and the groom will too. We try to see what our parents have done to make it through the years but most of us in this modern masquerade perform a masterpiece of misery. A series of unfortunate events gone viral throughout the families lines and eventually created the chaos in which we came out of.

All of this comes with smiling pictures in sunny picture frames only to notice a side of a coke addict spouse and a history of infidelity. Where have we gone so wrong in our culture? It seems as if even some of the most honorable American family systems are breaking down in the most unexpected ways. When that one good dad everyone knew as a honorable moral character finds himself with a not-so-faithful-anymore-fling, why even bother believing in the ring?

But call it the eternal hopeless romantic of a little girl’s big dreams, we trust that one day we will find someone to love and be loved by. We wish upon a shooting star, blow another eyelash off our cheek, and tap our heels together three times to ensure that love will bring us back home in the arms of our beloved.

It’s too bad the reality is a tornado has hit and all we really can do is be happy we are still alive after the fact. Twisted love stories aside, when we do finally build up the confidence to lay our hand out to be taken by a real man, and not one from a fairytale, we must know that we are engaged in some stranger-danger.

We may have dated for 5 years or only 5 months but still the probability of failure and success stays the same. Just the other night I met a woman who was engaged and I asked her, “How long has she been with her fiance?” She casually replies two months and she’ll be married in three more, “It’s common in my culture” she added. Sure orthodox jews speed up the dating process and don’t even touch until the wedding night, but did that make their marriages any more or less successful? Numbers say the odds don’t discriminate regardless of what customs we practice but there definitely was something to what the rabbi said today.

It is from our absolute dedication to a solemn vow that makes the difference between romantic inquirers and life-long lovers. Dating to encounter as many experiences possible to discern what fits with an individual’s eccentric energy is a precarious pursuit with no guarantee and the hazardous hidden cost of heartbreak. Is it just best we stop searching, settle down, and tie a sturdy knot?

Devoting our lives to a man we know now doesn’t mean we will be married to that same man in the next fifteen years after time has worn him down to the truth. The question then seems to expand into wondering how to unlocking a man’s inner integrity. How can we find such a key if we are dealing with an incomplete and puzzling lock? We seem to forget that marriage is the most binding contract between two people especially when involving children.The whole thought process makes, “till death do us part” sound more like, “part of our own personal deaths.” So we better choose wisely and listen up,

How does one judge a man’s character only on what he has done today, and not what he will do in the future?     

I guess with Yom Kippur hanging over men and women’s heads alike, we can all agree only an infinite being is capable of having that answer.

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