importance of your wedding vows
Find a Conversation
importance of your wedding vows
| Wed, 08-18-2004 - 2:48am |
I'm raising this topic following on from the "open marriage" discussion and numerous past discussions about cheating.
The standard marriage vows contain the words "forsake all others", "through good times and bad" and "til death do us part".

Pages
>>Are some parts of our vows more important than others to you?<<
If you think of the marriage vows as a sacred contract between two people, then one partner breaking one part of the contract makes it therefore null and void. If the 'clause' "forsaking all others" is violated, then you can forget promising to stay with him/her "through good times and bad" ; That is my comment on breaking traditional western wedding vows if your spouse cheats.
I am a Palestinian muslim, therefore I did not speak those same vows you are talking about. The idea is the same though. We are to become one with our spouse and are literally each other's 'garments' (to show the closeness of the relationship). And trust is like a pane of clear glass. Once broken, I do not believe it can ever be returned to its previous state.
Edited 8/18/2004 6:37 am ET ET by mystic_baby
Great question Yasmin.
When I married him, he didn't drink at all. And I never in a million years thought he'd cheat. He was so shy, I couldn't see that happening. BUT, when he got a job with a bunch of older men who went to a bar every evening after work, the trouble started. Pretty soon THAT was his life. And of course, there were women in the bars. Alcohol, false courage....
Hind sight is 20/20! I know now I should have ended it after just a few years, but I believed in those vows. I rationalized. I thought he'd "outgrow" it. But he didn't. I had women harassing me on the phone, sending anonymous mail, and making my life miserable. But I hung in. He had a habit of coming in, starting a fight, and then going out again. Even when I refused to fight with him! A few times, he'd "walk out" saying he wasn't coming back. (I found out later that it was just his "ploy" to stay away for a few nights.....girlfriends pressuring him to "spend the night"!) Finally, after 20 years, he pulled that on a Friday night. A whole weekend with the current bimbo! But this time, he was gone two weeks. When I found out he was in Florida with the "current one"....that was it. He called after two weeks, to see if "I" had settled down, and I told him NOT to come home. He was in shock, and so was I, but somewhere, I got the strength to stick to my guns, and I got a lawyer. End of marriage.
At that point, I was sad, I was scared, and felt like a failure. But at the same time, it was like a HUGE weight being lifted off me. I have never regretted it. But he has! He married again, and actually called me wanting to "see me". I told him he was nuts. When his second wife left him after 15 years, he came running to me for sympathy. He didn't GET it. He's still a stone alcoholic, and now that he's 69 years old, no one wants him anymore. He's sad and lonely. Too bad. He put me thru hell for all those years, now it's his turn.
No one should spend their life being emotionally abused. I've since had a couple of LTR's that didn't work out in the end, but I've found out what happiness can be like. I'll never settle for less again.
As for the "open marriage"......I don't see the point. I've been blasted before for saying it, but in my opinion, if a marriage needs extra people brought into it, then there's something missing in the marriage, and why bother staying married. Either fix it, or end it. If people want to "sleep around", fine, just don't get married.
Jen
I'm not, and have never been, married, but at age 32 it's of at least some interest. Seems like many of my friends have had cheating husbands, and they get so, SO hurt but it. Lives fall apart and many tears are cried.
Taking a step back, I'm thinking, sorta like the Sting song "If You Love Someone, Set Them Free." Is that possible?
I've never cheated. But I'm in a two-month old relationship with a great guy and I believe he has screwed another woman a few times. (Put it this way, I've made fun, before sucking him, of "where it's been lately" and he sure hasn't denied it.) I adore him, but I don't know if seeing another woman was "cheating" exactly b/c he's never said he was exclusive to me. Moreover, I think it was probably _good_ for him ... he's not a sex addict in the negative sense, in the least; rather, you can tell he positively glows from it and it is very healthy for him. I find it a little hard to begrudge him a roll in the hay or two, even though I have no interest in doing the same. He likes girls. There's nothing sick about it, he just gets along great with 'em. I know it feels good for him and I would never wish him anything but pleasure and happiness. I'm not really the jealous type. Do I like to think about the details? ... of course not. But they don't horrify me either.
I guess where all this leads to is, so much worry in the world is directed at SOs having sex with others ... does that really matter? The whole private investigator industry is built around cheating, AFAICT!! Does sleeping with other people really eviscerate the bond? Or has society just programmed us to have a whiplash reaction along the lines of, "OMG!!! How horrible! How distasteful! How disrespectful!"
I'm really NOT advocating things like swinging ... that seems altogether cheesy. Different thing altogether. Anyhow, there's no yes or no; I'm just trying to second-guess making automatic judgments.
Thanks all for such insightful responses.
First up, I absolutely agree that both parties must be willing to work for the marriage.
I personally agree with Yasmin on the issue of trying to work through adultery. But if he was a repeat offender or showed no remorse, I could not continue to work through it. If my partner screwed up and was sorry, wanted to fix the problems in our marriage that caused him to turn away from me, I would work very hard to keep it together ESPECIALLY if we had kids. Pre kids I think I would be less likely to try so hard to work it out. Plus, I would have serious doubts about chosing a cheater to be the father of my kids because it shows a lack of moral clarity and character. I think chosing my child's other parent is the most important decision I'll ever make.
I don't however think that having an open marriage is cheating. Cheating is doing, saying or acting in a way that you wouldn't do, say, or act in front of your partner. If two consenting, married adults AGREE to be intimate with other people, then its not cheating. Weird? Yes, but cheating, no.
JMHO
Having said that, I am aware that people and their needs and desires change over time, so I think that you need to be flexible in your approach to everything. For example, I can see that having threesomes or swinging works for some people. For those that do that, they have mutually agreed to change the vows of the marriage and forsake 'forsaking all others'. That's fine by me.
As for my partner cheating on me? I think that you have to take each case on it's own merits. There are plenty of stupid reasons why people cheat and I don't think that there are any good, sane reasons why they do. You have to decide for yourself how stupid or how sane their reason for cheating was, and weigh that up against their willingness to work at repairing the damage, and their future trustworthiness. I don't believe that cheating is automatically the end of a marriage. My partner disagrees with me on this one - she'd dump me in moment if I cheated on her.
I've had a previous marriage end with my wife sleeping with someone-else. However, that wasn't ultimately the reason that it failed. It did put the final nail in the coffin when I found out though.
Here's my contribution- The 'vow' was very important to me. I see nothing wrong with couples living together if that's what they want. I don't think it's this huge sin. I do think that there should be some **SERIOUS** committment on the parts of both adults when children come into the picture because that changes the situation entirely. It doesn't have to necessarily be marriage for everyone, but for the life of me, I do not understand having kids with someone you've known a month or in the one case that dumbfounded me "Until we get to know each other better and know that we can have a serious relationship" (after having 2 kids together.) Kids are a bigger tie than any vow will ever be.
The vows I took are very important to me (and fortunately for me, to DH too). And I've been there for the good times and bad. I did seriously think of leaving years ago when DH's drinking was approaching intolerable levels, before he realized the seriousness of it. And I did think of leaving and even talked to him about it when his gambling addiction was threatening the very family. It made life unbearable and I was very unhappy. It waxed and waned for many years and caused problems that we are still working through. But we're still together and things are looking up for both of us.
Infidelity? In my younger and more naive days, I said that's all it would take to end it immediately. Really easy to say that when you've never faced it. Infidelity hasn't been an issue for us, but I truly feel this way about it: If it were a one night thing for which he was immediately and totally sorry for, I could stay. I wouldn't be happy, and that's not permission for him to go find a side dish. But I think I could work through it. I don't know that I would give up 19 years of hard work and tear my sons' lives apart over one thoughtless mistake. I've worked too hard to get to this point to let it go for one night.
But if it were a series of 'one nights' or if there was a long term emotionally-involved affair, I would not be able to stay in the marriage. I could forgive the one night. I won't forgive a line of them and I won't share in the marriage, especially if it's taking time and feelings and sharing away from me and my kids.
I've been in a relationship in the past, and was cheated on. The hurt I suffered wasn't from the cheating, it was from the decision by HER to end it because she lost interest in me and wasn't woman enough to talk to me about it before getting involved with someone else.
I only point that out because YES I've been through it, maybe not to the as others, but I've been there nevertheless.
Vows do not dictate my marriage. Vows just happen to share and identify what I already believe in what my marriage is all about. My marriage will not depend on how well things go. As I've said multiple times, if I love someone enough to literally sacrifice my very safety and own life for, then how could I possibly cough up that someone at all?
If a couple falls out of love, then it really is up to THAT couple to deal with it in their own way. No debating that. My question IS though:
How does a couple fall out of love? Its not the different responses to marriage challenges that I get confused about, but its moreover the statements of falling out of love that confuse me. I never did fall out of love with my former gf so many years ago, but YES she claimed she fell out of love with me. Basically, that told me that she was in love with me as a convenience to her needs and desires being in love with just me and my personality.
THAT is the difference that I notice so often when reading about break-ups all the time. Look forward to reading additional views.
:)
:)
C h a r a c t e r
above all else
Mr. Para
C H A R A C T E R
Pages