We’ve often wondered why they call the significant other the “better half.” And if it’s only “half”, why would it then be significant?

We think we know why. You’re only half because you’re not married. Once you tie the knot, you’re complete. Yin and yang. Jack and Jill. Half and half make for a nice-textured cream for your coffee. Marriage is the refining process. Both man and woman come to embrace the institution of marriage so that they can be refined and processed to perfection. They are but raw materials of society. Marriage not only refines, it’s the quality control department and the production department all rolled into one (that is, when they’re ready for offspring).

People Broken by a First Marriage Re-Marry Because Marriage Completes…

Doesn’t it surprise you why people who have been hurt and embittered by their first marriages marry again? It may have to do with the loneliness factor and the feeling that one is not whole. The dread of emptiness lingers. It scares people out of their wits so that they feel compelled to commit again, no matter how badly stung they were the first time.

Remember when Barbra Streisand sang “People”? The lyrics were powerful – especially the part that says “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” There’s a lot of truth in that, which explains why marriage, as a habit and ritual of contemporary society, stays ingrained in our beings. We may laugh about marriage ending up in divorce, but marriage has an invisible magnet, a universal pull that brings human beings of like mind and soul together.

Bette Davis, one of Hollywood’s most classic actresses made this declaration in the movie, All About Eve: “Sooner or later we’ve all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we’ve had or wanted…and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed – and there he is. Without that, you’re not a woman. You’re something with a French Provincial office or a book full of clippings – but you’re not a woman.”

Ditto for the man. You may have the best Hitachi power tool or a stock portfolio that may make Warren Buffet salivate with envy, but without a woman, you’re nothing.

Marriage completes the man and the woman. These are beautiful words if you sit down and think about them for a minute or two. It’s like a house being a home, a painting being a spiritual message, and a newborn being the core of innocence and truth.

If you take marriage by itself, it’s nothing but a piece of paper, an institution, an act that’s supported by legislation and by religion, but it does not go beyond that if there isn’t true love. Love is a verb, says Dr. Barton Goldsmith (Emotional Fitness for Couples, 2005) and therefore requires action.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course, I do, honey. Didn’t I say so at the altar in front of hundreds of witnesses?”

“You may love me, but you need to tell me more often. It’s what gives me strength.”

Marriage completes the man and the woman because it comes with the guarantee of unconditional love. When you buy something – say a diamond – you want your purchase to be backed by a guarantee or a certificate of authenticity. It’s the same with marriage. It has to be nurtured and nourished with sincere expressions of love. This is why when spouses don’t get sufficient assurances, they go back to the store and return it – ergo, divorce. They’ll tell the courts that they’re no longer loved, that they’re no longer on the same playing field, and that they’ve given all they have and they have nothing else to give. The well’s run dry.

For Marriage to Complete Us - Personal Effort is Vital

Marriage isn’t something that performs a sort of hocus pocus on couples and then puts them through the completion and refining process automatically. It can’t run without fuel. That fuel must come from us. Goodness knows we have enough of mundane worries at home and in the office and we work till our bones may ache, but relationships also need work of their own, and if it means overtime work, so be it.

Imagine the assembly line in Detroit. Parts come into the factory. They’re small parts, but as they go through the assembly line, these parts get bigger and bigger until the last phase – when they get transformed into sleek and handsome sedans and coupes. Magnificent to behold – and to think that they started as pieces of metal! They sure got a lot of help though to turn out to be kings and queens of the road. The hands of factory workers made and molded them and put them together like intricate pieces of a puzzle. When the last screw, nut and bolt are in place, someone shouts, “this puppy’s done. Take her away!”

Marriage is like that, you know. Two people come in, unsure, fragmented in their feelings, profound in their fears for the future. But once they’ve had the taste of marriage, they gradually settle down and keep the fireplace burning. Their love is more robust, more definitive. The ups and downs of a relationship between two people in love will, by the law of logic, weave perfection into their lives. They find their own rhythms, grow together and at times, grow independently of each other. Marriage is not only a completing act, it’s a balancing act. It’s like being in the circus. You laugh and you cry. If you keep laughing or crying and never seem to do both, then you’re not complete, you’re not a whole being.

Going back to this personal effort in helping marriage complete us:

• Always seek ways to say “I love you” without saying the words “I love you.” You know the song by now – actions speak louder than words. Be nice, do something “heroic.” Don’t fall through the cracks. Make your marriage your # 1 project in life. Never let it slip to # 2 or # 3 position.
• Argue if you will – it’s healthy, but be fair. Don’t disobey the rules and go overboard. If conflict is inevitable, resolution is also inevitable. Kiss and make up and solve the problem together, instead of putting blame on the other.
• Be a mature marriage partner, but be innocent in your soul and have the curiosity and interest of a child. Marriage can be frustrating at times – this is perfectly normal and to be expected – but don’t lose interest in your partner - ever. If you catch it escaping from your grip, grab it back and start from first base again. Repetitive stress tends to make us jaded and we burn out from the demands of home and office, but this doesn’t mean that we should give up on life. Plan the future with gusto. Aim high for completion. When you get there, tell yourself, “there’s more completing to do. It shouldn’t stop here.”

Marriage Completes the Man and the Woman - Think Oatmeal

Oatmeal? What in heaven’s name…?

A psychologist by the name of Robert Johnson dared to step into the mysterious realm of romantic love and offered a very simple – maybe minimalist – metaphor to compare a couple’s love to oatmeal (of all things). In fact, he called it the “stirring-the-oatmeal love.” He says it’s an effective way for married people to remain in love forever.

For Johnson, “stirring-the-oatmeal love” is a symbol of bringing love down to earth. It is a couple’s willingness to share an ordinary life…to find meaning in the most insignificant and unromantic tasks. Johnson says that stirring the oatmeal means finding the ordinariness of life and delighting in it, seeing beauty in the simple and mundane, and not resenting it when the marriage no longer holds a cosmic drama, an entertainment tonight kind of activity, or an intensity of anything.

We think Johnson was thinking along the lines of the quietness of marriage…for silence is golden, isn’t it? And when one’s not talking, things get accomplished. And when there are accomplishments, that means the marriage was allowed to perform its completing task.