My baby-brother is getting married this weekend! Evidently in Georgia they allow 14-year-olds to get married. What's that you say? My brother is 36? When the heck did that happen?
Oh, I guess about the time I turned 39... Eeck.
We all had our doubts about whether QJ would ever take the plunge. Our confirmed bachelor, he is. Er... was. But then he found a gal who stole his heart and a mere five years later... poof: a wedding. (We tried to tell them to take it slowly, but young love... what can you do?)
My brother said an unmarried friend of his future father-in-law explained marriage like this:
All the unmarried guys are sitting on their tropical islands, sipping their umbrella drinks, having lots of fun, and looking out at the ocean...But not my brother. He has put down his drink, and is swimming out to that sinking ship... er, wonderful institution, that is called marriage.
Where all the married men are on a sinking ship, just trying not to drown. And the married men call to the single men and say, "Come join us! This is a great cruise!"
And the single men... well, the smart single men... just shake their heads and go back to their umbrella drinks.
So, in light of the upcoming nuptials on Saturday, I thought I would post a few items to provide my brother with some advice regarding marriage.
That they totally crack me up is just a bonus.
Best wishes, baby brother. May your marriage be full of blessings and laughter. May love and kindness always guide your actions. May you always love each other more tomorrow than you do today.
Game over, man. Game over.
Humor aside, I've actually never understood why the stereotype of marriage as something guys seem to get into against their wills (and, apparently, only stay in out of some sense of obligation, as they're clearly not happy there) is so persistent. Perhaps too many people go into marriage too quickly, or as a "license for sex" (as a play I seem to recall being in from a number of years ago put it), or something else.
ReplyDeleteIf this is truly the sense for many people, I feel more pity for them than anything. Suffice it to say, after 8 and a half years of married life, that kind of thing has yet to be my experience.
(One obvious response I can foresee regards the fact that I don't have kids. I'll certainly concede that as a fair point, but since kids aren't so much as mentioned in the post, I think I can be forgiven for assuming that there must be another factor at play.)
I just wanna say that the "International Symbol for Marriage" picture wouldn't really make much sense when the $ sign is on the credit card... that excludes most of the countries
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