A lot of people have been made to believe, by religion and culture, that marriage is not meant to be enjoyed but endured. So veteran married women that have experienced little or no happiness in their marriage indoctrinate the newly weds to endure their marriage when faced with challenges in their marriage instead of telling them to stand on their convictions while doing all that is necessary to deal with and remove the challenge in partnership with their husbands. While it is a fact that couples in marriage are meant to grow together and make themselves better people as they walk together in love and agreement, the importance of mutual agreement must never be under-emphasized. For it takes agreement for the couples to co-operate with one another while resolving whatever issues come their way in the marriage. Love can be worked on in a relationship/marriage where it is lacking, but agreement has to be by freewill for it to be true agreement.
A lot of people have lived their married life in sorrow and endurance, while their partners have found soul mates outside the marriage, someone they find more compatible. They however remain married to their spouses for appearance/convenience sake. While their partner's life and dreams go down the drain in frustration and disappointment, especially if that partner chose not to engage in illicit affairs too. I personally see situations like this as unfair and a total waste of life and destiny. Why should a person endure a marriage that is dead if one partner is not interested in making it work?
Someone said to me in the course of a discussion that if everyone is asked to leave their dead marriages, there will be no marriage intact. I beg to disagree. There might be a lot of bad marriages in our society because of the prevailing wrong attitudes and mindsets, but despite that, there are many good and healthy marriages. Not that these healthy marriages are without challenges, but the partners in them are committed to one another and the marriage in agreement and love. So the dissolution of bad marriages will not destroy the institution of marriage, instead it will sanitize it for good. The marriage institution is being exploited by scrupulous and cruel people to trap and enslave innocent and good intentioned people through the wrong mentality that marriage is a do or die affair. The only way to free such enslaved people is by revealing to them the right mindset so as not to mislead the upcoming generations and prevent the vicious cycle of abuse.
It's understandable if old and elderly women decide to stay in a bad marriage. Starting all over again might not be appealing to them. But should we condemn the freshly baptized and inducted newlyweds of few years to a life of wasted efforts, pain and miseries? Does it make sense at all? Is it fair? When they can still cut their losses and move on, start afresh to ensure a decent and happy life for themselves and their children. It's only those that have gone through abuse and violence that can fully understand the devastation of living with an abusive and violent partner. It's horrible. If a person is willing to leave such a life, he or she should be commended for the courage to do so and supported in all possible ways.
We should keep in mind that no one will leave his/her marriage if the marriage is healthy and good. No one desires a broken marriage, but when left with no choice, it's better than dying prematurely. So therefore, that a marriage looks good from the outside does not mean it is inside.
Life is to be enjoyed and not to be endured!
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