This morning I woke up with a passion, and as I went about my morning routine and began my day, ultimately I came to feeling defeated.  Defeated by what we have let happen, what has become acceptable, and how we can live with it.

Yesterday I met a woman who is getting divorced after 37 years of marriage.  Today I celebrate a friend’s 25th wedding anniversary.  In the midst of those both unfortunate and fortunate milestones, over the past year I have witnessed friends’ marriages become dissolved.  It breaks my  heart.

As someone who is widowed, I view marriage probably different than most.  Being that at one time I was a spouse, I know that I thought about what would happen if he or I ever cheated, the ramifications of that act.  You see marriages collapse around you and cannot help but wonder if at some point you will be at that point, all the while praying it never happens.  No marriage is perfect-some deal with personality traits that hinder our relationships, infidelity that can lead to the destruction of trust and sometimes the marriage, changes in dreams and hopes that can put your marriage on a completely different path.  There are so many things that pop up in life, and in marriage, that can de-rail us from the dreams we had of a lifetime of happiness with our spouse.  For me, it was death.

Death was what ended my marriage, not by choice; in fact, I prayed every day, sometimes every hour, that death would not come so soon.  I wanted my marriage to continue until forever, but that was not to be.  Some choose to end their marriages early for reasons we sometimes know and understand, and sometimes for reasons that we can never understand.  All I know, is that afterwards, there is so much bitterness, regret, destruction, that I wonder how you could put another person through that act.  Sometimes it is best to break the tie because it was not bonded, but sometimes, why was it done?

I think just as in death, in divorce, there is little understanding.  Many times both people in the marriage fail to understand the other person’s wishes for the marriage to end.  They do not see what they need to change, they can no longer relate to their spouse; ultimately, there is no longer a connection.

…and sometimes people find love elsewhere, often by accident?  I put the question mark there because I wonder how much by accident affairs occur, or that one falls for another.  If you are happy in a marriage, and truly in love, I think you can love someone else, that one is capable of that, but that your marriage is the ultimate love.  But when marriage is going “south”, when things are not a-ok, you may not be consciously looking elsewhere, but you certainly wonder if things would be better with another person.  Then we become weak.

Affairs have little to do (for most anyways) with a vicious act-I hear of few affairs where the person viciously sought after another just to prove a point, or hurt their spouse.  Most times it “just happens” (which again, another phrase I don’t think is wholy true) and before they know it, they’re having an affair, destroying a relationship of which the spouse has no indication.  We are weak.  We are human.  We sin.

I am angered this morning.  I angry because we let our marriages become so distraught with pain, and distrust, and dream killers, that we become weak and seek love elsewhere before cutting the tie, or before working it out.  The latter is most important.  Few people on this earth really get a chance at love-most of us get the version where we work hard for what we have, and we cherish it.  It can be just as passionate, but often, it is not nearly as easy; not that love ever is easy.

I am angry because you do not cherish.  I am angry because I wanted to cherish until forever.  I wanted my forever to be until I was 80, and gray, and had saggy boobs.  I did not want to have to date again, to seek out another chance at maybe having a 2 in a bazillion chance of finding real love.  I had it the first time around, how could I be that lucky the second time around?  Or maybe it is just what I make it-life is often that.

I am angry.  Don’t get me started on the statistics of divorce, because trust me, I see it.  I am just 26 and have seen more hurt than I care to see in marriage, in relationships.  What made us think that we deserve to treat our spouses that way?  Not making a decision is worse than just lingering.

I am angry because we hurt each other too much, and none of us seems to want to hold the blame.  We blame it on the other; or at least we try to find justification in doing things because they did things.  It’s not an eye for an eye, we’re not living in the old testament.  We are living in a time of forgiveness, second chances, striving for our dreams and true love.  In a sense, we’re living in a dream world, but why can’t it be that way?  Why can’t we cherish what we have, or let go of the bad and move forward with a future that could happen?

I am mad because you may get a second chance, and while I may get it as well, I didn’t want the first time to end.  I was happy.  I tried to cherish as much as I could.  I held on.  I watched his last breath as he slipped away from our world, and left me as a widow.  What are you doing?  Are you cherishing what you have or walking all over someone else’s dream?

Cherish my dear friends, cherish.  Witness the last breath if you can.