Imperfect Marriage

Don't be fooled by the Christmas letters and pictures of perfect families.

Marriage is never what it appears. Behind every beautiful facade....
Is a complicated power structure.
Behind every hand stitched memory...
Behind every well-placed piece of furniture or decor...
Is a dust ball, a broken ornament or that missing extension cord needed to light that star on your tree.

~ Andrea Fraser (Good Housekeeping 11/29/10)

This said, even in divorce - "there is no better reason for being on your best behavior during the holidays than your children." ~ Cathy Meyer

And with more and more marriages going down the tube, now we have "sexting" - which basically falls in the category of emotional affair or infidelity. People defend this behavior by saying it isn't cheating if they didn't have sex. Just another sign of today's attitudes toward marriage, commitment and infidelity. Yvonne Thomas, PhD, an L.A. psychologist says, "When you're going outside the boundaries of what you're supposed to share, emotionally and physically, only with your partner, cheating is cheating." It would seem though that some have a skewed idea of the boundaries in marriage.

In fact, it seems boundaries are the cause of many problems we have in relationships of all kinds.

In "sexting" the desire for outside sexual stimulation is more important than the pain it would cause the spouse he/she had vowed to be faithful to. I liked Cathy's observation that sometimes much more effort goes into planning an elaborate wedding celebration than in planning how to have an effective, committed and long-term marriage. Setting goals as a couple and making the health of the relationship the main focus is often forgotten these days.