TING AND I, Pitfalls and Potholes in Marriage

“Bait and switch” refers to the selling tactic of seeming to offer one thing, but ending up providing another, inferior, item.

I have heard a number of instances where this tactic led to marriage. The courtship was wonderful, the post-wedding period something else. A bit of “company manners” might be expected before, and “letting down one’s hair” might be experienced afterward; but the stories I’ve heard go well beyond that, more like fraud. It may be an important reason why about half of first marriages end up in divorce and about half of second marriages end up likewise. There was no such deception in Tina. The magnificent human being I thought I was getting is the person I have been married to for 27 years.

Another flawed approach to marriage is domination of one partner by another. Sure, in different situations one must decide, and then the other person follows; but consistent domination is demeaning and destroys the love one began with. Those countries where women are little more than servants to their husbands victimize half the population directly and all indirectly.

Tina is too precious to waste in such an environment.

A third flawed approach is that of the overly assertive woman. She speaks to a man the way men do not speak to each other without expecting a fist fight to ensue. “A soft answer turns away wrath,” I think the Bible says. So true. Tina has mastered this, or perhaps it is just part of her DNA.

Men can be obsessed with their careers, women less likely so. Women can be obsessed with their children, men less likely so. The best life involves a balance rather than the maximization of a portion. Tina and I have striven to do just that.