Wise words from a friend
So, I have this friend, Ethan, great guy, really awesome dude... a few months ago he wrote something that really describes my view on relationships and marriage...
Just for a moment I would like to state an opinion on the concepts of three combined subjects: Friendships, Relationships, and Marriages.
First, simply to get it out of the way so that it's understood, I have never been married, so I have not developed this opinion through first-hand experience, rather merely by many cases that I have witnessed and observed around me; people of various different kinds going through various different situations. But this blog entry goes out to not just one but two different people who I care about and might want to read this.
So let me then lay out my understanding of these three concepts before I go on to state what I have observed about people around me who have gone through all three.
The Friendship: The friendship is the base level bond of two people; the foundation of everything dealing with them. Within the friendship, they learn about one another and create and build the bond between them through learning and understanding one another and afterwards relating to one another as well. In this stage it is typical and recommended to learn, understand, and choose to accept or not accept how one another functions mentally and emotionally in various circumstances. This understanding is usually reached through either conversation and/or through eventful experiences with the other person.
The Relationship: After both people begin to enjoy each other to a certain point, they will both be satisfied to agree that they want to experience one another on an even closer level, assuming they hold genuine confidence in each other concerning their feelings, who they know one another to be, and their decision to move to the next level. After this stage starts, physical intimacy begins and the two discover each other on a new emotional level. The two hold confident to the idea that their bond is strong enough that even environmental circumstances would be much less likely to break the bond. They have strong enough feelings about it that eventually, they have no reason to believe that they cannot be together for the rest of their lives and also feel that they have been altered by the relationship to the point where they believe they may not make it well enough in the world if they did not have each other involved in one another’s lives, which eventually brings us to…
The Marriage: The marriage is known as the final binding of the two people together. It is the oath to honestly and sincerely combine the foundation (the friendship) and the genuine confidence in one another (the relationship) to create a whole out of the two and also to bring a new element into the picture: personal synergy, or teamwork to help each other’s lives (the marriage most importantly) work right and smooth while living with one another to create a family. An official instinct to look out for one another in many aspects is also created so that no outside intruders (whether social or environmental) have power to alter, weaken, or disperse the bond between them. According to the oath, it is typically BOTH people’s responsibility to do what it takes to keep the marriage healthy and without serious personal confusion / conflict as possible.
Now bear in mind how I chose to define the Marriage: As a combination of the friendship and the relationship - usually meaning that those who are married still have that friendship created at the beginning as well as the relationship created from the friendship. Neither of these elements are neglected but rather are put into regular use from day to day, week to week, and so on. However, in some people’s eyes, for some reason, there seems to be no combination to create the marriage. Instead, once they are handed the relationship, the friendship seems to be discarded; and furthermore, after they are handed the marriage, the relationship seems to be discarded. Afterwards all they are left with is the one thing set apart from the rest: the attempt of synergy (working together to live with one another with little conflict). Unfortunately, this life together could not be properly achieved after the friendship and/or the relationship is discarded. With no foundation, there is no basis. Without confidence, there is no reason, therefore, you have neither basis nor reason for the marriage to exist without the two first elements in the marriage and the “house” collapses on itself.
Sometimes one person in a marriage may not realize that they have discarded one or both elements of the whole bond, while the other person has not discarded either and is waiting for their mate to deliver theirs to no avail. Sometimes the person waiting may not even realize that their mate has discarded these two very important elements. Either way, the marriage becomes one sided.
So people, whenever you decide you want to get married, I recommend that you try to keep this information in mind. From all I have observed, the friendship and the relationship are vitally essential for the marriage to work right, or else, your chances of being very miserable throughout the marriage can grow on you. But when it really comes down to it, this outlook may simply depend on who you are and how you work. What I’ve written here is based on typical circumstances that I have seen - a pattern that developed before my eyes without fail.
Feel free to post your views and opinions, especially since I wish to have as much understanding from different points of views as I can; I welcome them.
Thanks for reading.
Just for a moment I would like to state an opinion on the concepts of three combined subjects: Friendships, Relationships, and Marriages.
First, simply to get it out of the way so that it's understood, I have never been married, so I have not developed this opinion through first-hand experience, rather merely by many cases that I have witnessed and observed around me; people of various different kinds going through various different situations. But this blog entry goes out to not just one but two different people who I care about and might want to read this.
So let me then lay out my understanding of these three concepts before I go on to state what I have observed about people around me who have gone through all three.
The Friendship: The friendship is the base level bond of two people; the foundation of everything dealing with them. Within the friendship, they learn about one another and create and build the bond between them through learning and understanding one another and afterwards relating to one another as well. In this stage it is typical and recommended to learn, understand, and choose to accept or not accept how one another functions mentally and emotionally in various circumstances. This understanding is usually reached through either conversation and/or through eventful experiences with the other person.
The Relationship: After both people begin to enjoy each other to a certain point, they will both be satisfied to agree that they want to experience one another on an even closer level, assuming they hold genuine confidence in each other concerning their feelings, who they know one another to be, and their decision to move to the next level. After this stage starts, physical intimacy begins and the two discover each other on a new emotional level. The two hold confident to the idea that their bond is strong enough that even environmental circumstances would be much less likely to break the bond. They have strong enough feelings about it that eventually, they have no reason to believe that they cannot be together for the rest of their lives and also feel that they have been altered by the relationship to the point where they believe they may not make it well enough in the world if they did not have each other involved in one another’s lives, which eventually brings us to…
The Marriage: The marriage is known as the final binding of the two people together. It is the oath to honestly and sincerely combine the foundation (the friendship) and the genuine confidence in one another (the relationship) to create a whole out of the two and also to bring a new element into the picture: personal synergy, or teamwork to help each other’s lives (the marriage most importantly) work right and smooth while living with one another to create a family. An official instinct to look out for one another in many aspects is also created so that no outside intruders (whether social or environmental) have power to alter, weaken, or disperse the bond between them. According to the oath, it is typically BOTH people’s responsibility to do what it takes to keep the marriage healthy and without serious personal confusion / conflict as possible.
Now bear in mind how I chose to define the Marriage: As a combination of the friendship and the relationship - usually meaning that those who are married still have that friendship created at the beginning as well as the relationship created from the friendship. Neither of these elements are neglected but rather are put into regular use from day to day, week to week, and so on. However, in some people’s eyes, for some reason, there seems to be no combination to create the marriage. Instead, once they are handed the relationship, the friendship seems to be discarded; and furthermore, after they are handed the marriage, the relationship seems to be discarded. Afterwards all they are left with is the one thing set apart from the rest: the attempt of synergy (working together to live with one another with little conflict). Unfortunately, this life together could not be properly achieved after the friendship and/or the relationship is discarded. With no foundation, there is no basis. Without confidence, there is no reason, therefore, you have neither basis nor reason for the marriage to exist without the two first elements in the marriage and the “house” collapses on itself.
Sometimes one person in a marriage may not realize that they have discarded one or both elements of the whole bond, while the other person has not discarded either and is waiting for their mate to deliver theirs to no avail. Sometimes the person waiting may not even realize that their mate has discarded these two very important elements. Either way, the marriage becomes one sided.
So people, whenever you decide you want to get married, I recommend that you try to keep this information in mind. From all I have observed, the friendship and the relationship are vitally essential for the marriage to work right, or else, your chances of being very miserable throughout the marriage can grow on you. But when it really comes down to it, this outlook may simply depend on who you are and how you work. What I’ve written here is based on typical circumstances that I have seen - a pattern that developed before my eyes without fail.
Feel free to post your views and opinions, especially since I wish to have as much understanding from different points of views as I can; I welcome them.
Thanks for reading.