Marriage and Children

My name is David, and I am NOT married. So why am I writing about marriage? Why am I telling you something about marriage, if I have no experience in that matter? You have guessed it. I am a child. Well, you could say, I was a child, being now 18 years of age. But are we not all still children, which are just grown up? I think everyone of us experiences very often in every day life, how our childhood influences our present mindset, emotions, thoughts and behaviour. So, what have we - as children - to do with marriage? Well, let me start like this.

Nowadays many people don't want to marry anymore. They prefer a free and uncommitted relationship. This seeking for free and unforced relationships is the peoples answer to their own childhood. Many people got the feeling from their parents that life is a sequence of events and circumstances which are put over us, without us having any influence on our own lives. Our fate directs us in certain circumstances and we just have to see that we survive.

Life is not a game, where we can choose what we want. Life means hard work. Life means to follow rules and regulations and it means to perform many obligatory activities, just so that live can go on. That's what many of us were told from our parents.

Maybe not directly, but through their daily example. But not enough with that. Often parents not only give us a strange outlook on life in general. They also give us a questionable outlook on their own relationship and thus we learned as children that the marriage of our parents is merely a partnership of convenience.

A partnership, which follows the motto: We are together, because we were thrown together and we are still together, because we depend on each other. Or because it is too inconvenient to break up. I am not saying here that this is the case everywhere and I also don't want to make the impression that it always has to be that extreme. Nevertheless I know it from my own experience and from many other people that many people got such impressions to a smaller or bigger extent in their childhood. So, what is the reaction of children, who experienced something like that? They fall into the other extreme! They don't want a relationship, as a means to secure their livelihood.

No, they want a partnership where no one depends on each other, at least in financial aspects. They don't want a relationship, which is characterized by a routine of daily obligations. Their answer? A relationship JUST FOR FUN! But it's no fun. It's just the naive attempt to be exactly the opposite of their parents, without realising what is really missing.

Too many of us have experienced the marriage of our parents - at least partially - as a dry and hardened thing, and so we think: Let's just do it the other way round! But what is the result? Never before were people feeling that much lonely and unloved. Never were people that much frustrated from a host of unfulfilling and disappointing relationships, and never was there a time that people would start that easily a relationship with a partner they actually don't even like, just to feel a little accepted. It turns out that we ended up at the same place where our parents were. The only difference is that our relationships are hanging completely in the air. They are are not even secured anymore by certain social conventions. So, what is the solution? First of all, it's no solution to be against something wrong.

We have to be FOR something good! And that means that we need to know what we want. So what do we want? Independent dependence! There is nothing wrong to leave the constrained relationships of our parents - or the constrained aspects in their marriage - behind. That's actually wonderful.

So what are we doing wrong? Well, we stay on the same emotional level, where our parents were with their marriage, but we declare ourselves as independent. Our parents had a relationship, because they needed each other, and we have a relationship pretending that we don't need each other. Eh? If we don't need each other, why should we have a relationship? Right! And that's what we see nowadays. People are together, as long as there is the excitement of something new.

And as soon as that impulse vanishes, they break up. Of course, if there is now reason anymore to be together, why should they? And that's where the concept of independent dependence comes into place. This concept is a revolution in our understanding of relationships and introduces completely new aspect. Independent Dependence means that we are together, although we don't need us. And that is only possible, if we love each other. As long as we need each other, our relationship is either a well or badly running business, but it's a business.

But when we don't need each other, we can start to love. When we understand that we have everything we need, because we are children of the divine Universal Person, THEN we can make the decision to love. And when I speak of love, I mean real and unconditional love, the kind of love, everyone of us is hankering for deep inside. This is the key for a successful and fulfilling relationship! We understand now that independence is they basis for a successful relationship and we also see that everyone tries to be independent nowadays, but no one is! Everyone pretends to be independent, but the current condition of our society shows us that that's just not the case! Therefore everyone of us should be extremely keen to develop our own personality, so that we can see our true brilliant and shining inner self again. We will begin to understand that as children of the divine Universal Person we don't lack anything. And once we develop such a state of mind, we will be able to start fulfilling and joyful relationships, where we are not afraid of obligations and duties, because we don't do them out of necessity, but out of our love, out of our own free will.

Many people are afraid of marriage nowadays, because they see this as an unwanted responsibility and therefore as something limiting. But as we have seen and discussed now, marriage can also be exactly the opposite. What, if we like to be responsible for someone? What, if we love our partner so much that we are happy and honoured to take care of him? Isn't such a marriage a sign of freedom, and simultaneously an act of true love? With such a mindset marriage is not a dry responsibility anymore. On the contrary, it shows that we are capable and willing to love and to be loved, and it shows that we are able to tie ourselves to a free relationship.

We tie ourselves to freedom. We don't want the same life our parents had, and the good news is that we have the chance to make our life different! Therefore let us start to build fulfilling relationships, by developing our true identity! Thus we will be able to reach our goal of a loving and caring relationship, and such a relationship again will enable our children to develop loving and caring relationships in their own lifes. In that way, we shall have everything we want! We shall live our life different than our parents. We are happy AND we give our children the same we are seeking for! In that sense, much success and a fulfilling relationship!.

David's father, Friedrich Asen, is a personal and spiritual development expert, counsellor, coach and author since 20 years. For more articles about the subject of marriage please visit his site Heal Your Marriage.