This is a day of many things. It is the Inauguration of a new president and the eve of a wedding. The ramifications feel as if they’ll last for the rest of our lives. Like the vows some people make and, for some, eventually break. 

That’s why forever should be taken out of the equation. Unless your partnership directly relates to your reincarnation. For the rest of your lives carries with it a heavy weight. It means until I die. It means until you kill me. It means until I run away. It means the truth about great grandpa is that he was a dusty rolling stone. So the nostalgia of the past, the idea that people who remain in marriages are actually happy and the longer the marriage the bigger the love, is the thumb that keeps some people repeating the pattern: married with regret. 

So many partnerships are shaped outside of the normative paradigm that creates false binaries. Roles that require couples to compartmentalize their identities and work that hinge largely on gender. 
Then there’s plain old fear. Fear of making the same mistakes everyone else has and take an L in the marriage department (at least once). Some people want to be married, they enjoy marriage, they remarry again and again. I can’t imagine that since divorce is quite taxing. But I think it’s an interesting concept to link yourself, in such a way to another person, multiple times.

The fear will never go away unless it is met and confronted before the wedding day. Consult a counselor, pastor or celebrant who does couples counseling prior to the wedding. It is not meant to deter people from getting married but to help them be honest about what their intentions are for the future and who they are in the present. Many couples do not know each other well enough before they marry. That’s why newly weds are able to have a “honeymoon” period. Couples that have been together for years may have cracked each others shells and have practiced fixing (or not fixing) their mistakes. Even then, we all need help in healing.

My hope is that I make the right choice for me and you make the right choice for you. Forming our lives around what trends, society dictates and families approve is no longer an option. Unless it directly relates to your reincarnation… Be a blessed being that can mold a new way of approaching old ideas.