Growing Old Together

Growing Old Together

Blogging Through The ABC’s -Letter G

I don’t know about you or your view of marriage, but I went into my marriage with the thought of growing old together.  There was no thought of oh maybe we’ll make it.  It was clear to me that we would make it and I was going to grow old together with my husband.

Through my life I’ve seen people who go into marriage with an attitude other than growing old together and they don’t grow old together.  It’s sad in my opinion.  I think marriage is holy and we should go into it with a thought of growing old together with our spouse.

Now before people start talking about well what if this and what if that.  Let me say that yes I do believe that divorce can and should be an option if one of the partners is abusive and in some cases when they are unfaithful.  Let me explain that one.  If someone is unfaithful and then repents and is truly repentant, I don’t believe divorce is immediately necessary.  I view some reconciliation as being needed there.  

Most of the time that I’ve seen divorce happen it’s because neither party truly wants to work on their marriage or maybe one party does but the other doesn’t, so they divorce.  The going gets hard so people end their marriage.  

My grandparents were married for 68 years before my grandma passed away.  That was my example growing up.  Well one of them.  My other set of grandparents divorced when I was two years old.  I had a choice you see.  I could choose to follow either set of grandparents.  I chose the ones that stayed together.  

They were my favorite set of grandparents.  I loved the teasing they shared, the banter, the love.  That’s what I wanted for myself when I was old enough to marry.  That’s the marriage I wanted to model for my children.  I knew I wanted to grow old together with my spouse and have all those memories to share with my children and someday grandchildren.

I’m not saying that growing old together is going to be easy.   On the contrary, it’s going to be hard.  You’re going to have to work together to overcome challenges and obstacles.  You’re going to have differences of opinion.  You’re not always going to feel “in love” with your spouse.  That’s when you have to remember that love is a choice.  And you chose to love this person enough to marry them.  Why?

If you can remember your why’s for marrying them you’re going to have much more success in growing old together.  Also, something that has been helpful to me is having an older couple to have as mentors.  They can help you know how to overcome some of the hurdles in your marriage.  

The most important thing though(in my opinion) is having God in the center of your marriage.  Before you get married really make sure that you’re following God’s path for your life and this is the person God has for your spouse.  Make sure that growing old together is the common goal.  Discuss what you’ll do when you have disagreements.  Do marital counselling with your pastor.  I can’t stress how important really getting in-depth together and in tune together with God will help your marriage.

What about you, what are your thoughts on marriage?  Do you believe it should be entered with the common goal of growing old together?  Why or why not?

I do want to say that yes I know there are instances when divorce is necessary as I stated above.  It was necessary for my aunt when she divorced.  Necessary for her and her daughters to be safe.  Not all divorces are necessary though.  And those are the ones that make me sad for all parties involved.  

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