Will Smith on Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline

Will Smith’s new memoir has a passage on his marriage with Jada Pinkett-Smith that I couldn’t help but sit with for some time. I knew I had to share it.

Their marriage has been… interesting. There were rumors about their relationship for years but when the couple sat down for their now infamous Red Table Talk episode, the memes were aplenty. They came to address some questions, and while I think they did that to some extent, I was left with even more questions.

Couple that with the continued rumors of extramarital dating, even more memes and a sound bite from Jada and her desire for love on Red Table Talk, Will couldn’t avoid elaborating on his relationship. Could he?

Thankfully, he didn’t avoid it. In fact, he may have said some things that will be in vogue for the next generation (and perhaps this one as well).

“There are few things in life more challenging than being married. The intimacy tends to stir up and expose our most poisonous inner energies. If we can learn to love here, we can love anywhere.”

Herein lies a key difference between friendship and a sexual relationship. While both relationships require intimacy, a sexual relationship invokes a deeper dive into the psyches of the people involved. And if those people live together? Forget about it. That makes it even more intimate because of the conflicting, contrasting and complimentary desires.

Is it any wonder that people choose hookup culture instead? It’s less demanding and less revealing. Whatever spiritual practice one could gain is ignored for the comfort of what one already knows.

Why would anyone want to uncover that the major reason they are attracted to their partner is one that they are ashamed of? Why would anyone want to hear the main reason their partner is attracted to them? It might elicit shame or guilt.

Why would anyone want to expose the psychological underbelly of oneself, much less their partner? It’s simple. It’s because they care about themselves and they care about their partner. Because the long-term benefit of exploration is better than the short-term gain of ejaculation and potentially temporary companionship.

Because if I say I really care about you, why should I limit your happiness, even if that means taking shots from the public for an unconventional approach to love and marriage. Maybe it’s the public who’s got it all wrong.

“We are simultaneously 100% bound together and 100% free. We agreed that we were both imperfect people doing our best to figure out how to be in this world joyfully. What we needed from each other was unconditional love and support. Not judgment, not punishment, but total unbending devotion to each other’s growth and well-being.”

Here you see that marriage for Will and Jada is beyond romantic or sexual attraction. It’s a spiritual practice manifesting itself as a life partnership.

He didn’t say this but I guess it could involve romantic and sexual relationships that exist outside their marriage. And if that really was their decision, that’s okay. But I can also understand why they would be reticent to admit that.

If I’ve learnt anything about society is that despite it being comprised of differences of opinion, lifestyle and personality, everyone wants you to conform. It’s an awesomely annoying duality that is chock full of judgment and punishment.

Will and Jada are attempting to make a safe haven for one another to be who each wants to be and to live how each wants to live. They may not see eye to eye but that’s okay. No two people see eye to eye on everything anyway.

It seems the Smiths have decided that the best way forward is to be each other’s cheerleader when it comes to their personal happiness. It may come in the form of encouraging their differing lifestyles. It may come in the arms of another person sometimes. But it is clear that the focus is love, not merely sex, definitely not possession and most definitely not conforming to one person’s idea of what ought to occur in the relationship.

“We came to see our marriage as a spiritual discipline, what Bhakti Tirtha Swami calls, ‘the ultimate school of love.’ This relationship is our classroom. We are learning to cultivate care, concern and compassion in the most intimate and difficult of circumstances.”

One of the reasons people love the idea of being in a relationship is the joy of being in unison with someone else. They really see and feel you. You have shared desires and goals for one another and with one another.

The irony is that while this is true, when the contrast shows up, it is seen as devastating. How can we not want the same things? How can you believe something I consider to be flatly wrong? How can your desires actually prevent me from getting my own?

It is because we are different.

The unit of marriage is just a microcosm of the world. It’s the same issues, same conflicts and the same fights. The difference is that this is far more intimate, which encourages the couple to honor the differences as well as the similarities. This is what the world would benefit from, but it must start small before it grows into the wider society.

If you focus solely on the differences you will want nothing to do with them. Focus solely on the similarities and you will be living a grand delusion that will end sooner or later.

Marriage is seen as the ultimate school of love because you have all the tools to give love. You just need to learn how to use what and when until it becomes automatic. To be fair, you don’t have to be married to do this. But a relationship that a couple decided would last until death will embolden the two to try to make things work and eventually (and hopefully) thrive.

* * *

I don’t suspect Will or Jada to stop being somewhat cryptic about their relationship any time soon. After all, it’s really their business and we’re just trying to understand it.

There have been some embarrassing moments. Perhaps some foot-in-mouth moments. There may have even been times where they thought they presented their points well only to be misunderstood by the doting and critical public.

But I’m thankful that Will decided to share something with us. Especially something that will cause us to look at our own relationships and consider if we’re doing it right or if there’s room for improvement.