Marriage 2

Dear friends,

Some months ago, a workmate of mine, male, got married. On the first day he came back to the office, I asked him teasingly, “So? How do you feel now after getting married? Happy?”

He answered, “I regretted it.”

I smiled widely. I responded, “You regretted it because you didn’t do it earlier, eh? Now that you know it is so heavenly to do it?” LOL. It is a cliché, do you agree?

However, unexpectedly, my workmate continued, “No, I mean it. I regretted it. I just found out that getting married even engenders more problems to my life. Living single is much more pleasant to me.”

I was dumbfounded to hear that. Then, I talked to myself, “Hmm … this is the first time I heard someone saying honestly about getting married, only some days after the wedding day …” I left him to come into my desk located in the corner of the teacher’s room, to do my own duty as a lecturer. But, this short conversation really haunted me.

It reminded me of a good friend of mine who got married in the beginning of 2005. I knew very well that her marriage plan didn’t run smoothly. Despite her family’s disagreement, she married her boyfriend she barely knew because they knew each other in less than 6 months. Though she is my good friend, I didn’t know exactly what made her take that decision: to marry him. One thing I knew, after the wedding day, she was not really happy with it. Therefore, I was really upset and troubled when a workmate visited her after the wedding day and said, “She looked happy. Who is not happy after getting married?” I directly concluded that this female workmate of mine was the sufferer of Cinderella complex, who believed that marriage is the gate of eternal happiness, that all marriage brings happiness. If I use my rude and cynical nature, this workmate is not honest to herself. No matter what happens in the marriage, people must always show happy faces and say, “I am happy now that I am already married.” in front of other people.

How many people are not happy in their marriage? Uncountable. However, since we live in a so-called “marriage-oriented society”, people are not confident to deviate from this. They want to be considered ‘normal’ by living in a marriage, by believing that marriage is the best choice; that it is okay to be miserable inside as long as other people see us as ‘happy’ because having the three things people covet to possess: being married, having a job, and having a kid.

Suddenly I remember a comment of a good friend on my article “marriage”. He said, “You don’t believe that true love between man and woman exists, eh? That eternal love exists?” Simply I said, “Natural law says everything changes in this world.”

Hmm … do I really sound so pessimistic in marriage and love?

Yogya 19.46 December 2005