Marriage: The End Of Marriage As We Know It

By Nicholas Schmidt

The End Of Marriage As We Know It

The archetype of marriage was designed to assist physical survival...The archetype of marriage is no longer functional.

- Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul (1989)

Something seems to be seriously wrong with marriage.

During the past 50 years, the rate of divorce in the United States has exploded out of control to its current level of about 50 percent, and it shows no signs of letting up. That is a very sobering trend and statistic. I recently contributed to that number, and it doesn't feel so good, especially when there are innocent children involved. Some people have contributed more than once. Most of them probably feel worse than I do, and wonder where it all went wrong.

Things haven't changed too much over the ages. The clay tablets of ancient writings tell us that men and women were getting married and divorced thousands of years before the birth of Christ. It didn't seem to work so well then either.

The statistics also mean that half of the couples not divorced are still married, but are they all happy? To what degree? My guess is that most of them are going through the motions, are unhappy, frustrated and tired of pretending that all is well, but stay together for many different reasons. Some couples probably continue to suffer through it all just to have the security and comfort that the legal bond of marriage brings. Others stay together for the children's sake, while others don't want to violate religious dogma and go to hell for eternity. The list of reasons goes on. Maybe five to ten percent of couples on this planet have some idea of what it takes to make a marriage relationship a lasting and fulfilling one.

Here's a recent quote from Reuter's news agency:

The most common living arrangement in the United States consists of unmarried people and no children, which made up one-third of all households in 1998, double the percentage in 1972. Meanwhile, the traditional nuclear family -- a married couple with children -- made up 26 percent of households in 1998, down from 45 percent in 1972, according to a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

These findings continue to support the notion that something is fundamentally wrong with the marriage experience. The root of the problem has to do with the reasons why people get into relationships in the first place, and then end them when the union breaks down. All of it relates to the play of our egos.

It would seem that the act of falling in love at the right time with the "right" person makes us feel as though it will last forever. As a result, we often find ourselves making and then braking promises that seem to be difficult for us humans to keep. It's not unusual for this to happen any number of times throughout our lives, as teenagers, young adults or even during our middle age years. We believe love will last forever.

Something just isn't right. The numbers of couples who will break away from one another today or will separate in sadness tomorrow, married or not, speak for themselves. These numbers again indicate that something is fundamentally wrong, yet we are still so caught up in the delirium of falling in love, getting married, mating passionately, having babies and pledging our love for eternity that few of us have stopped to think about what's really going on here.

What are we missing? Have today's young adults stopped to catch their breath to wonder how all of this might affect their own lives someday? Do they care? What can they do? How can we help them from making the same mistakes?

Before I married, not once - and I do mean not once - did anyone come up and ask me, "What's the real purpose of marriage?" Quite frankly, I believe that few people could have given me the right response at that time anyway, because they really didn't know the answer themselves. It just seemed everyone else was doing it, having children and a home was fun and all of my friends and relatives were into it as well. On top of it all, Hollywood was glorifying falling in love, and mushy songs constantly reminded us how wonderful it all was.

What also drove the process was the love between the two people involved. Most of us get married when the intensity behind the relationship is at its greatest, in the first two to three years. Then one day we wake up in it. If we remained single too long, people looked as us strangely and wondered who we really were.

With a failure rate of at least 50 percent, something is clearly fundamentally wrong with the reasons people enter long-term romantic relationships. Hopefully, today's young adults are paying attention and asking more questions than I did.

What is the fundamental problem behind this sad failure rate? It all has to do with the many fear-based motives that have served as the basis for long term relationships for many, many generations. In other words, they fail because we enter into them for the wrong reasons.

The "wrong reasons" have been and still are many. Here are some...

·      Marriage will end my loneliness.

·      I'll have someone to take care of me.

·      My partner will make me happy.

·      I can expect wonderful things from my partner.

·      I'll feel complete when I'm with my love.

·      She'll need me and I'll need her.

·      Now he'll belong to me.

·      I can finally just be myself after I'm married.

·      We'll both be able to have some control over each other.

·      Marriage will make me happy.

·      Our combined incomes will allow us to own more things.

These examples have been the basis for most relationships for a long time and they are still with us.

These examples are all the wrong, ego-based motives for being in relationship. So when I speak of the death of marriage, I really mean the end of getting into marriage or long term partnerships for the wrong reasons. In reality, marriage is killing itself.

Another major problem is that we constantly fall into the trap of falling in love with the "picture" or "vision" of marriage that others paint for us while we grow up. For example, movies, television, books, songs, friends, family, etc. all influence us as we go through the innocent formative years, especially the teens. The easy part of "falling in love" is glorified time and time again in Hollywood and in song after song. After a while, that's all we want to do - fall in love and be in relationship.

Then it gets serious. We find ourselves wanting to spend our lifetime with just one other, making babies, having a nice home in the country, and so on. It's so easy to get caught up in the picture that is painted of the engagement rings, the showers, the limousines, wedding gowns, receptions, gifts, honeymoons, homes, furniture, TVs, cars, baby's room, and so many other material things. Eventually, reality sets in and 50 percent of these "pictures" end up in divorce courts that suffocate the once passionate lovers with the negative energies of fear, anger, greed, revenge, bitterness and the like. One has to ask, "Isn't there something wrong with this picture?"

Something new is happening today. Change is in the air and it is irreversible. It is happening all over this planet and it is happening to relationships. It is no accident that current marriages, founded upon old belief systems and man-made religious dogmas, are coming undone. Many traditional beliefs based upon fear are falling apart at this time.

A New Age is upon us, and it is called the Age of Aquarius. It is said that all current and future relationships will be affected by it. Aquarius does not promote false beliefs, nor does it support fear-based thoughts, needs or actions. Aquarius is also ushering in a time of spirituality (as opposed to religious dogma), and it is upon this rock that our children will build the future. They will also become far more aware of the spiritual meaning and purpose behind the concepts of soulmates and twin souls, and how these types of relationships can awaken us to our true spiritual nature and heritage.

The excessive materialism of today's marriage relationships will also come to an end. A balance of the spiritual and the material will favor those who choose this path. Those who don't will find it difficult to achieve lasting happiness and fulfillment in their partnerships.

The quote cited above from Gary Zukav's book basically says that one of the main reasons we have been getting married over the ages is to survive in our physical world. He is correct. That is fear-based action, and it is coming to an end. There's simply no room for fear during the time of Aquarius, and this astrological, love-based age will last for some 2,160 years.

See more from Nicholas Schmidt at: http://www.fromthestars.com