TR EMERITUS

I have been wondering about marriage for a lifetime. Last time I checked, it’s in the vows. That is what purifies the wedding night, a union till death.

Many men (or husbands) do struggle with it. Not the marriage, but the duration. It’s hard for men to imagine how a union can be kept fresh and novel after some time. I am sure you’ve heard, monogamy is monotony.

Some may even argue it is unnatural. That’s not how we have evolved, they said. Look at our history, love is a latecomer in marriages. In the past, marriages are arranged by fathers, for many reasons, and love is just a bonus.

After doing divorces for decades, I realise there is the 2-year itch, 5-year inch, that unmistakable 7-year inch, and after that, the whole body itches. While men are always on the hunt for pretty young things, women are looking for stable trusted companions.

At the risk of oversimplifying, I realise there is a direct relationship between time and lust in marriages that struggle (or are flesh-focused). The longer the time the couple are married, the stronger the lust. But that relationship inverses for time and love, that is, the longer the time the couple are married, the weaker their love for each other. This may be due to the novelty factor, because the dish you have ordered has turned cold, while the dish on the other table is still piping hot.

They say love is a battlefield. Indeed it is. You fight for it. You protect it with your body, soul and mind. The moment you wander around the palace of your mind, you are sure to find a Bathsheba waiting in sight. Lust shines a torch in the darkness, and it is the only thing you see.

Imagination is costless, until it becomes costly. Consequences is the tortoise in the race of personal responsibility. Pleasure is the hare. Pleasure always comes in first; it blinds you. Consequences come later; it overwhelms you. In the folklore as well as marriage, the tortoise eventually wins, if we live intentionally, and run the marathon with our vows always in sight.

I write this because I realised novelty causes men’s mind to wander, but a little power and wealth, even those that are inflated by one’s delusion, put their wandering mind on speed dial. It takes a push of a button to cause them to release all restraint. The animal in us go on a prowl when we let our lust howl.

What then is our defence to these words by author Edward Abbey (who was married five times): -

“Modern men and women are obsessed with the sexual; it is the only realm of primordial adventure still left to most of us. Like apes in a zoo, we spend our energies on the one field of play remaining; human lives otherwise are pretty well caged in by the walls, bars, chains, and locked gates of our industrial culture”?

Alas, enough is enough. Marriage is serious. It is life-transforming. It makes or breaks a life or two, or even more. Take it serious enough and you are happier for it, fuller, contented, complete. Take it otherwise and it is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

I believe that love will always triumph over lust, because a love forged by unwavering faithfulness in partnership with time makes sex but only one of its unspeakable joys.

In the book The Meaning of Marriage by the late pastor Timothy Keller (with wife Kathy Keller), Kathy wrote this in her notes: -

“We came to realize that orgasm is great, especially climaxing together. But the awe, the wonder, the safety, and the joy of just being one is stirring and stunning even without that. And when we stopped trying to perform and just started trying to simply love one another in sex, things started to move ahead. We stopped worrying about our performance. And we stopped worrying about what we were getting and started to say, “Well what can we do just to give something to the other?”

Indeed, as one wise man puts it, “Love's give and give, and lust's take and take.” (Dr Yap). And as pastor Keller wrote, “…the greatest sexual pleasure should be the pleasure of seeing your spouse getting pleasure.”

While lust wants it all for himself, love wants to give it all for her. Once you arrive there, once your marriage matures to that level, sex becomes other-directed. It ensures not just mutuality, it is primarily enraptured by it.

Imagine that kind of love. Imagine the propensity for greater love over time. In fact, time will not dampen such love. Like a lighted match and a flowing river of kerosene, time would only fire up the streams of passion even more. The nights are brighter, the days seem shorter, the joy deeper, and the passion more sublime when you are consumed by such love.

Such love can only be forged, welded together and held up by a lifelong marriage. Such love is one that fornication or one-night stand pales in comparison. When a couple enter into this exclusive marital covenant, they hold in their hands the priceless ticket to enjoy this union that is unbreakable. It is not skin-deep sex, but selfless love.

I therefore challenge all men (with or without itch) to win this love, to work for this love. Put aside your-self and your lust to fight for it. Be defined by it.

We therefore hold in our hand this ticket. We shall enter this union. We shall not look back. Because in exchange for all the transient pleasures we leave behind, the pleasure that awaits us in this union is one that no worldly pleasures can satisfy.

Let me leave you with this quote, which is dedicated to the one I love. And I dare you to do the same, that is, upload a picture of her on the wedding day, and make your declaration openly. If you mean it, trust me, it will change you.

“The world, for me, and all the world can hold
Is circled by your arms; for me there lies,
Within the lights and shadows of your eyes,
The only beauty that is never old.”
(James Weldon Johnson “Beauty That is Never Old”)

Michael Han

* The author was a Director at Han & Lu  Law Chambers and blogs on Facebook.

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