I unexpectedely ran into an old college friend of mine earlier this week. I hadn't seen him in more than eight years, so I figured we'd have a lot of ground together. But his interests - or rather atterntion- was more singularly focused on the events that had unfolded in the last 12 months.
As it goes, he dated his college sweetheart for six years before they decided to make it official and get hitched. They had several different ceremonies, articulating their vows three times over. One year later, they had filed for divorce.
I watched him as he struggled to put words to something that made uterrly no sense to him. It had been more than a year and a half since it ended, and it was clear that he wasn't much closer to figuring out what went wrong. What stuck with me was when he said: "When you get married you think that it's going to be forever. But I guess my thoughts on marriage have changed."
I can't say that I know why his marriage ended either. There are always two sides to a story and a lot of history that feeds into a relationship. But what I do know is this: it's easy sometimes to focus on the wedding as the goal instead of the long-term relationship. I have caught myself sometimes thinking of my life like a checklist. College diploma, check. Travel overseas, check. Graduate school, check. Challenging career, check. Marriage, house, kids....pending, pending, pending. It's almost as if the timing of when I get married is more important that the person with whom it's with.
As my friend and I brought our discussion of love and marriage to a close, we became more forward-looking. As (nearly) 30-somethings, we both wanted similiar things, intimacy, support, a thought partner. The main difference is that he had the trauma of a divorce coloring every potential relationship.
So as eager as I am to meet someone, I am going to remind myself to resist the urge to rush in. Because after all, almost no one gets married thinking that there's is the one that isn't going to last.
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