October 24th, 2025

Weddings rings. Simple bands which are themselves symbols of eternity, which represent the vows, shared by two people who have now promised to be together, forever.  Weddings always touch my heart in a special sort of way. Whenever I attend a wedding I have tremendous hopes and wishes for the newly created  couple.

As you may (or may not ) recall,  Tim and I have been together for a Long time now, coming up on 32 years.  And we are as devoted to one another as much, if not more, than we were the day we got married.  Awwww

Tim and I opted for the old fashioned, very traditional vows.  We promised to "love, honour and to cherish one another for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, 'til death do us part".  I know that a lot of folks nowadays choose, instead to write and speak their own very personalized vows and I do think that is charming.  I find it impressive that couples will go the extra mile to really consider what they wished to promise to the other and also be willing to state it publicly.  In front of witnesses.  Often videotaped.  We will call that evidence.

I stumbled across a set of essays online recently written by people whose marriages did not work out.  The stories told were about the breaking point, the moment the other person left. They were very personal stories, crafted by people who was sometimes sad, often bewildered, occasionally bitter and angry. 

Far too many of the tales were remarkably similar.  Generally something along the line of the when the writer of the essay became ill or injured or perhaps it was their child who ended up with medical issues and then the spouse was outta there.  The reason for leaving given, over and over, was, "I didn't sign on for this".

I disagree.  Yes. You did.  This is exactly what you signed on for.  "... in sickness and in health..."  It is right there in the vows.  You promised in front of other people. You made a solemn vow. On video.  There was no asterisk by the "sickness" part of those vows that said *as long as the sickness is just a cold or the flu and oh by the way, even if you are sick I'm still going to expect dinner on the table and clean laundry anyway". NO!

What is wrong with people?  This is real life. Not the Disney version of real life.  There are going to be good times but there are also going to be bad times.  Sometimes it'll be so sweet and easy and other times it's really going to be hard. Really hard. Screaming into your pillow and crying in the shower hard.  But you push through.  That's what you do.  You honour your vows.   Why do some people not get this?

I am not talking about two reasonable people who have grown apart and choose to move on to separate lives. I'm not talking about abusive relationships of any kind which absolutely is the perfect reason to leave. I'm talking about the real normal life of two people who loved each other enough to promise to care in Sickness and in Health and then when sickness happens - the really bad stuff: a debilitating injury, an unexpected disease - they haven't got the grit to hang in there.

Frankly, I am so disappointed in those people that I don't even know what to say.

I've heard in my real actual life, as well as this collection of stories, far too  many of these cases and I just......  It's heartbreaking. How can anyone abandon the person that they Swore to love and care for, Forever, just because the going got hard for awhile? I am baffled.

The worst one of these I ever knew, and this was someone I knew personally in my real life, was a mom of twin baby girls.  The babies were beautiful but born with a fatal congenital condition that was terrifying, exhausting and terribly expensive to deal with.  The woman's husband, the father of those little girls, upon hearing of their diagnosis/prognosis left, stating that it was obvious that she had cheated on him and they were not his children because his people did not produce defective product.  That is what he said. And that woman found the strength somewhere deep inside to care for and eventually, sadly bury both of those babies, alone.

When I heard what he said as he walked out of their lives, I had to calm myself because I have never in my life felt the compunction to violence as much as I did in that moment.  I am normally such a peace-loving gentle person but I was shocked by my desire to slap the crap out of that man.  Obviously, I didn't do such a thing. I had no idea I was capable of even thinking such a thought before.   And thankfully, I didn't even say it out loud at the time because it would not have helped the situation at all.  I just let it simmer inside me. 

I am so sorry that this sort of thing happens.  And it seems to happen far more often that I realized.  Do people not understand what 'vow" means?  Do they not feel the weight of it?  The Significance?  The momentous importance?  I am mystified.

Look, it's easy to love someone when everything is going great. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and you have enough money in the bank to put a roof over your head and food in your mouths and everybody is feeling great.  That's awesome.  But that's not the test of a relationship.

The test comes when things aren't perfect.  When one of you loses your job and the money is tight,  when everything breaks at the same time, when the baby keeps you awake for nights on end and sleep deprivation is making you short tempered and practically hallucinating or when one of you suddenly has a serious medical issue that is going to mean big changes, at least for awhile. That's the test you have to pass. That's when your honour, your integrity in fulfilling your vows comes into play.  That's when you and the world find out what sort of person you truly are.

The life Tim and I have built together was not clear sailing. Nobody's is.  We've gone down rough roads, experienced difficult times, faced lots of scary stuff and we didn't always agree. But no matter what happens, we always know that we will get through it because we will face it together.  I have his back and he has mine. Perhaps we are hopelessly old fashioned but when we spoke our vows on that day, we meant every word. "For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad".  

We weren't just mouthing random syllables,  I felt the importance of those words as we spoke at my very core.  I imprinted them on a cellular level. I swear they are carved now on my DNA.  

Anyway, those are the thoughts that were rambling around in my head this morning. I will try to put together less serious thoughts for posts next week!

Wishing everyone a terrific weekend.  Hugs all 'round