I debated weighing in on this or not. I guess I can’t help it. I am not a fan of the Kardashian family. I don’t watch their shows. I ignore their drama. Yet this one, this “marriage”, just unsettles me. I wonder if we’ve gone too far. We elevate the oddest people to a place of “celebrity”. We treated her wedding like a royal wedding (Lady Diana..she is NOT). They make and spend more money than you and I will ever make combined and do nothing to advance the world or make it better. I couldn’t ignore this quote yesterday:
“Kim was hopeful that over time, the two of them would fall in love after they got married,”
Pardon my soapbox, but I thought you fell in love BEFORE you got married. It saddens me that THIS is who we elevate, celebrate and idolize. This is who gets the press, the programs and the spotlight. Ultimately, I have no idea why they got married or what happened to make it all fall apart so quickly. Each time this happens, I am reminded of a quote by Rob Bell from the book “Sex God“. He simply said, “There’s too many people under the chuppah“. The quote was referring to Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson and their reality show, but I think it applies.
Because when you give something away, you no longer have it. When a couple shares with others what belongs to the two of them, they pay a price. The power and the mystery and, therefore, the strength of the bond come from the exclusivity. When a couple lets people too far in, when we have experienced what is theirs in some mystical way, they don’t have it anymore. They gave it away.
If you do this enough times over a long enough period of time, you’ll end up with nothing that’s yours and yours alone.
A marriage is between those two people, not us. It’s not ours, it’s theirs.
You and I are not on reality programs on TV. We don’t make millions of dollars and our marriages are not a time slot on a network. Yet I think there is so much that is true about what Rob Bell said. There is a purity and a privacy we must maintain. We must protect our family. We must protect our marriage. I recently told my wife that I would rather have people think I am a jerk than not protect the core of our home. It must be defended and protected. We have to monitor how many people are under the chuppah.
I’m with you AC. Let’s hear the story of some nobody’s who’ve been married for 80+ years… they are true celebrity.
And whether you fall into or out of love before or after you say I do… I thought marriage was a covenant. A commitment. Before God, family and friends… that you wouldn’t let your fickle feelings undermine your word of “I do”. Let your yes be yes and your “i do” be “i do”.
That was my thought exactly. Let’s stop celebrating and running the divorces 24/7. Let’s start celebrating the marriages that do last. The ones that hold value. The ones that realize, to quote the song, that “love is not a fight, but its something worth fighting for”.