Marriage, Fantasies and Homosexuality

Everyday life can seem so ordinary, dull and uninviting at times. Routines can get mudane and unexciting. Maybe that's why we seek the dramatic exploits of fantasy. If only we could be flithy rich and famous, or maybe some sort of inventor of some kind. Perhaps an explorer of new lands or outerspace! Oh why can't I look like Angelina Jolie and have such a rich, exciting life? Oh why can't I be like James Bond, fighting the bad guy and with a new hot chick whenever I wanted? And on and on it goes...

Constantly comparing our ordinary lives with that of fantasy. No wonder we are so unsatisfied. No wonder we end up seeking the wind.

But I wonder what would happen if we decided to answer the call of adventure that knocks at our door everyday? Everyday adventure is waiting. Everyday adventure asks to come in. But instead of inviting this precious jewel into our lives, we leave it at our door step and seek that which destroys real adventure. We seek fantasy.

Let's take a close look at a  married couple. Let's say they have been married for about five years. After a year of dating, and getting to know one another, they fell deeply in love. They couldn't wait to see each other. They wrote love letters, or poems to one another. They texted late at night, talked through out the day and they always made each other laugh. They put the needs of the other ahead of themselves and their love was growing and thriving. So they married and had a beautiful ceremony. Their first year of marriage was just like their first dating year. But as life continued to happen there seemed to be less time for those love letters and laughter became a little less. Children entered the scene and they took a lot of attention away from each other. The wife gained a few pounds after the babies, and started to show signs of aging. Husband was working hard providing for the family and started to spend more time at the "office." Not to mention the new intern was young and attractive. She laughed at all his jokes and showed genuine interest in his life. So husband began to fantasize what it would be like to be with this intern. He started to flirt with her, and she started to flirt back. Soon they began to spend more time alone together and what he once had with his wife, is now there with this young intern. So he grows more distant with his wife. That new sense of adventure is no longer there at home. It is now with living out the fantasy of this new ideal of love and romance with the young and naive intern.
Wife is frustrated and tired. She doesn't feel attractive and notices the distance from her husband. She starts drinking a little more. She begins to feel like a martyr and fantasize about what her life could have been like if she hadn't married such a jerk. She starts to work out more and begins her own career path that she dreamed of before she fell in love and had a family, so she spends less time with the kids. The kids are trying to figure out how to treck this new terrain called life, but with no guidance from mom and dad, since they are busy fulfilling their emptiness with fantasy dreams, they are guided by peers, society and media. And since mom and dad fight so much, the kids are left with a skew view about relationships and real life.
A few years later, after husband's affairs, and wife's affairs with her own fantasies, they divorced. The kids now in the middle of  custody issues, they find themselves worse off. Husband is always dissatisfied and seeking the wind. Wife constantly driven by the same wind.

This story, although fictional, is true. Our divorce rate right now is close to 60%! That means a couple has less than 50% chance of making it til death do them part. The average length of a marriage is about 6 to 7 years. Althought it is not uncommon to hear about a marriage falling apart after 20 some years. And re-marriage is worse. There is an 80% divorce rate for second and third marriages!

Why????

Well, I suppose for lots of reasons. Affairs, finances, lying, secrets, drug addictions, abuse and violence. Oh yeah, and the ever so irreconcilable differences! Which is to say, "I love you but I am not IN love with you anymore." Or  we could say, "I just hate looking at your stupid face everyday, and I just HATE the way you brush your teeth, do you have to make that annoying noise!"

I am not a relationship expert, nor is my expertise in marriage and divorce, I am just a middle school teacher. But having gone through two divorces and now in my third marriage, I have been around the block and read a few things that make me want to fight this battle. I want the world to know there is a HUGE problem here that effects us all. In fact I am tired of our society accepting the statistics as something to be tolerated and as status quo, but rather as something that should be done to protect marriage.  Why? Why should we do something about our divorce rate and save marriages? Because if we don't, then our society will cease to exist. Our communities will become extinct. Dramatic you say? Well, just look around at the 75 school shootings lately. Look at the human trafficking going on in our own back yards. Children sold into sex slavery. How many children do we see become addicted to drugs and bullying? Teen pregnancy is romanticized and so are having affairs. Destroying lives and relationships. Our communities are at threat! Slowly dissipitating...

We live in a society that no longer respects marriage. "Just because there is a goalie at the goal doesn't mean you can't score." "I am married, not dead. I can still look and have a little fun!" I have heard countless stories of married women hitting on men and being single myself for a few years, I have had married men hit on me. I have dated a man who was addicted to porn and felt no wrong in participating in strip joints. I have heard of a story of a married woman wanting to pursue a career in exotic dancing, only to end her marriage in divorce. I have one friend who refuses to marry because she doesn't trust men. She was a pole dancer and took off her clothes for money. Her number one clients were married men. I wouldn't want to marry either if that was my perception of married men.

And what about keeping up with the Jones's? You know, materialism and debt? How career and having expensive houses, clothing, cars, and exotic trips seem more important than just keeping it simple and spending quality time with your spouse and children. Number one reason for divorce is finances.

I could go on and on about the stories of failed marriages and how they came to fail, but I think you know them. You know these stories because they are your neighbors, your brothers, your co-workers, and your parents. It is a rare occasion when you hear about a couple celebrating 40 to 50 years of marriage. And those celebrations will be less and less. I will be lucky to celebrate 50 years with my cowboy unless we live to be 90 years old. When I first married I was too young and naive to understand what kind of committment I was making. I knew there was an out, so I went ahead with it. My second time around I wasn't prepared for the battles that came my way. Although I knew the man I was marrying was abusive, I thought marriage would change him. I thought I could change him. I wasn't ready. I didn't know who I was and what my purpose was. I had two kids that needed a mom and dad and I thought I was doing what was right for them.
See, I believe that as a society we don't really understand what marriage is and why it is so important. Instead our society places an importance on romance and sex. Two things that are important in marriage of course, but they are not all that make up a good quality marriage. But what is also causing such big problems in our marriages is this false idea of adventure. For our entertainment purposes, Hollywood does a fantastic job on making our ordinary lives seem dull and unimportant. Our media is shaping our thinking in believing that marriage is for suckers and real living is about living out our sexual fantasies and pursuing riches. Our media is changing the way we look at women. Women are to be nice, sweet, and beautiful. Beautiful as in skinny with fake boobs and a tight body. Men believing that sexy is a Victoria Secret model. ALL fantasy. So our ordinary bodies, with our ordinary lives seem so ugly and unsatisfying, we end up depressed, angry or just full of shame. And since we don't want to admit these truths, we hide them by seeking the fantasy life, or with other behaviors like addictions and self-serve living.

With all that going on, I would venture to say that we are in a battle. A battle that is life or death. We need to start understanding the importance of marriage and family and start respecting the ring on the finger. Why are we so animate about acting like horny 16 year olds at all times? Let us grow up a little and start enjoying the lives God gave us. Let us start killing the fantasies with our so called ordinary lives and invite the grand adventure of everyday life. What is wrong with kissing the same woman every morning as she gradually changes more and more into a mature woman? What is wrong with raising kids to be decent human beings and feeding their curiosity about the world with positive affirmations and life lessons? What is wrong with facing and admitting our problems and finding ways to work through them rather than running away or hiding? What is wrong with telling the truth with love instead of keeping secrets and lying? What is wrong with living life simply and giving back what has been generously given to us? Why must we take, take, take? Married people are not free for us to take. They are to be encouraged to love their spouse and children. We need a society who can shape our culture into what is real and important. We need to fight for our marriages and our family. Our time and place is NOW and HERE. If there is ever a great adventure to puruse, a great cause to feel excited about, let us pioneer this unkown territory!

Oh and one more thing. For those of you who believe that same-sex marriage is a threat to marriage, you are fighting the wrong battle. I know your beliefs are strong in that homosexuality is a sin and therefore they shouldn't be allowed to enter such a sacred and holy entity as marriage. But the last time I checked we still allow other sinners to enter such a blessed covenant. We allow adulterers, liars, greedy people, and divorced people to marry. Some of these sinners are also a type of sexual sin. So unless you are going to protest and ban marriage from these people too, then you are simply being discriminatory and unjust. If you really feel the need to fight for marriage then fight for marriages to have more substance and quality. Start protesting against the evils that really threaten marriage. Homosexuals who want to marry do NOT lessen or threaten my marriage. In fact it is the husband who flirts with his co-worker, or the single co-worker who flirts with her married colleague; it is the wife who keeps secrets and lies to her husband about how much money she spent the other day; it is the husband who secretly looks at the Victoria Secret magazine longing for his wife to look like that, or fantasizing about having sex with the model; it is the wife who doesn't appreciate her husband and makes him feel like dirt that threaten marriage. Maybe instead of looking at the homosexual community as a threat, you can look at them as an opportunity to grow and learn. Perhaps we have a lot to learn from them. After all, they see marriage as something to fight for. Something to embrace and enjoy. A community who, maybe, understands the adventure and excitement that marriage has to offer, that they are willing to fight this battle. Friends, take a look at your own marriages. Just becuase you are married to the opposite sex does not mean you have it right. You’ll do far more good in the defense of the sanctity of marriage by writing a love note to your spouse than you ever could by updating your Facebook status with impassioned, scripture-infused messages in an attempt to put your morals on display. Stop with the madness and start with the love.