Friday, July 10, 2009

Premarital Counseling

Premarital counseling was great.
I thought it was worth every penny for us.
We learned a lot.
How to fight. Who we are. Our priorities. Our fantasies. Our dreams. How to handle money together.
I even recommended it to my non-Catholic friends.
Hell, I would recommend it to anyone who was even remotely thinking of getting married.

But then, I was pissed.
I was pissed that Roger had died.
We took all the right steps in preparing for marriage.
We did it right.
As some of our friends were struggling with their marriage, we were enjoying the married life.
And partly because we took marriage seriously.
And secondly because we did our premarital counseling.

I was pissed that I had worked so hard.
Hard to be the perfect wife.
Hard to be a better person.
And all for a marriage that ended almost as quickly as it started.
Damn it.

But in the last couple of months, I have realized something new.
All that premarital counseling, it did not just benefit Roger and me.
It benefits Mr. X and me.
It benefits my friends and me.
It benefits my family and me.
It benefits just me.

I am a better person through one part of premarital counseling, two parts of grief counseling, and a twenty parts of widow-ness.
I am (slightly) more patient.
I am more understanding.
I can admit when I am wrong.
I can see other points of view.

I am still benefiting from that premarital weekend back in February 2007.
I know more about me.
I know more about others.
Of course, I still have more to learn.
And I will definitely do it again.
Because it was and is worth it.

1 comment:

Roads said...

It's hard to work through grief whilst running a relationship. Not a lot of people understand that, since not many people will admit that such things could ever happen.

They always, always assume that because there is at some stage a new relationship, then the old one must immediately be done and dusted and dealt with.

And of course, that's just not how it is, and it never could be, either.

*Sigh*. The grief has ended, and the support and understanding dries up within a moment.

People have such a very limited and narrow view of grief. It all gets mixed up with this perception of loyalty and decency and goodness knows what other claptrap they think they understand about widowhood, but really don't.

However hard you try, it's almost impossible not to feel a little of that reflected, too -- in those difficult moments you describe when you meet the wedding contractors in the mall. Or his friends, or colleagues.

It's not easy stuff to deal with, any of this, but at the end of the day, you're really not being deceitful. It's not like you're going out to do guilty things on the quiet. You have the right to live your life exactly as you can.

Hats off to you for moving forwards. I'm wishing you all the best, at each and every step!