There are many forms of marriage, but it is not at all necessary to live together as sisters and brothers. ?

There are often times when the word marriage can make us laugh or weep; but then again, we must not be too hard on ourselves for having been married before. I was once married under what is now called day-to-day vows – that is where the phrase Day-to-Day-Love comes from. We are not obligated (or even allowed) to live our whole lives together as sisters and brothers.

We do not need to agree on a lot of things, and some days I am going to lose interest in you by the minute because the only thing I will have in your life is that one year you had to get a job to help pay for the mortgage, or that once or twice a month you took out a loan to buy a piece of land so you could build a home with your grandparents. And yet, we do. Not only do we have something in common we are also looking for something in return. Whether in marriage or in friendship, we both want more than love. Some friendships, like mine, have been built on true love, while others have been built on lies and deceit.

The point is, if you can find someone to share your heart with you, there should be no reason that either of you would not want that person in their own way. That’s why my husband and I had no problem living together as just our parents, but neither we felt any compunction about the fact that once he was getting divorced, he moved back home and got me pregnant. And I knew right then and there that this would never happen. He is a good father and I am a good mother. When I think of him I think of us being great parents, but the reality is that both of us are still broken people whose wounds cannot be healed. But we are trying our best. And now I know, although I don’t like saying it, that marriage is not so much about commitment as it is about loyalty. So, as the years go along and I get older, I look around at the couples I know, friends I have made and relatives, and I see that most of them are single or living apart. Because, that’s not to say that they are bad or mean when they tell you that they have decided against the idea of marriage.
They may have an incredible support system, and sometimes, in certain situations, they find themselves without anyone else. Their kids look up to them so they think about them; they may have a close connection to their roots that, as we get older, makes you feel closer to them. You might be able to say the same of your family – that you have your parents because there are other relatives who have your relationship with them. Maybe they don’t have as strong a bond as you have with your family. Many children think back to their parents when they are growing up and have a special connection with them. As a child, we learned that, so much so that sometimes we forget where we came from.

This has happened to myself and my family, so much so that when my son gets younger, I try to explain to him that the relationship between his dad and mom is different than the one that existed when he was a little guy and his brother was just born a few months later. My husband and I try to show him how it looks. Even though we may not feel it all the time, we still do it because we want to know that he is loved, which is the first step to building a new life. When we get married, we do it just like that.

But once we get married our hearts are different. All of a sudden you give yourself over to a man who wants to marry you into his own flesh so fully that you can barely breathe. You give yourself over, willingly give yourself over, completely surrender yourself, so that once you are there he knows he has come across another soul. Now he is the one who does everything – from picking up your clothes, to walking you down the aisle, to taking important decisions – for him. Everything. Just like that. Once he sees a woman do all those things of his own accord for her, that is every bit as good as if she were doing it all by herself. You don’t have to hold hands with him to kiss him goodbye, because, really, he is enough to provide himself.
Sometimes I wish that I could be a part of his life too. But, I am not, and that’s pretty hard to say when you love someone who doesn’t want anything but for you. For me, he doesn’t have to be my husband or my lover.

He

has to have a partner. In a sense, you create this partnership; it is already happening between us. If he is with you all day long you have to keep moving the pieces. What I try to understand is that once you have met someone you love and they love you.

They need them and they need you. And then the rest is history. In the end, that is the moment you choose to move forward with the man who wanted to take you away from everything that went before. That is the night that you decide whether you will love him and care for him or throw yourself into his arms and say a final goodbye to the old familiar bed that he has slept in since you met him.

There might be moments that I want to let him stay and never go, because I love him. There might be moments I need him to leave, so I can start living. But, in the end, I know that I love him and I have to stay.