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RE: ⒶⒷⓇⒶⒽⒶⓂ - the trouble with "till death do us part"
This is REALLY powerful! Having been married thrice, I now make no promises at all and simply live and love my best in each moment. x
This is REALLY powerful! Having been married thrice, I now make no promises at all and simply live and love my best in each moment. x
Marriage is a life time commitment to someone. Whether you make a promise or not, the moment you decide to share your life with someone in marriage, you're indirectly making a promise of "till death do us part"
that's just one narrow western version of marriage. In Thai Buddhist marriage there is no promise and no fidelity required nor expected....
Was not aware of that about Thai Buddhist marriage. Or that you've tried it three times. Back in my London days I filmed hundreds of weddings and became aware of something strange about them. We like to call things 'mine'... my husband, my wife, my children. But the truth of it is that they are no more ours than the rocks under our feet.
I was a devout christian throughout my childhood, which led me to study religion and the gospels. And in the end this was to be my undoing for I could see how we have been manipulated over the centuries for the purpose of control. The TRUTH that we are all ONE family has been completely lost now that we have been divided a million times into smaller and smaller units.
The purest kind of love is that which expects nothing in return and as soon as we attach vows (rules) to our love, our personal expectations are very likely going to bring us some kind of conflict.
Of course, everyone is free to live life the way they want and all of this is just my opinion ;)
My first husband was an evangelical baptist pastor and I was raised as a very strict catholic. I agree with you 100%!! It was only after my Thai Buddhist marriage (#3) collapsed that I realized there is no promise of fidelity at all - just a community witnessing the binding together (literally, with lucky string). My legal Thai divorce cost 52 baht, and 22 baht of that was photocopying fees. Just to show you how easy and common it is.
That's incredible how little it costs to get divorced!
I like the idea of a community witnessing a binding but have never resonated with the idea of doing it at the beginning of a relationship.
As I mentioned to @thetreeoflife Sabrina and I are not married but do intend to celebrate our union in the future when our children are old enough to enjoy the occasion with us and make it more about what we have achieved with our love, rather than what we intend to do with it, which to us feels more authentic.
Being faithful to the person you marry and committing yourself to such a person is not a western version of marriage but part of what marriage itself entails. You can't claim to love someone and want to be with such someone without committing and staying faithful to such someone. It's not going to work in any way. Marriage without commitment and faithfulness will certainly fail.
With all due respect that is quite a big statement there. And I feel sure Thai Buddhists would disagree.
Sabrina & I are not married, yet now that we have children I feel as if they are way more powerful than a wedding vow. Our non official promise to each other is simply that we will always do our best. Knowing that our best is going to change from time to time eliminates the pain of expectations not being met and permits us to grow as individuals who don't rely on the others' actions for our happiness.