"Realistic" or a "Recipe for Failure"

My parents are in the minority of couples that have remained together in this day and age. Divorce is an epidemic that is at an all time high...especially in America. I feel very blessed that I did not have to experience what it is like to be a part of a broken home. In fact, oddly enough, most of the close friends that I had as a child did not have to experience that either...so I never really have seen it first hand.

My heart goes out to people that have been forced to go through this, either as a son or daughter watching their parents break the vows, or as a couple who has determined that they no longer need to be man and wife.

Thumbing through some internet articles the late stages of my friday afternoon at work (counting down the minutes until my weekend starts :)), I ran across a very interesting article. Apparently, the part of the wedding vows that say "Until death do us part" are gradually being phased out of the standard vows that are being used today.

The article reports, "Vows like "For as long as we continue to love each other," "For as long as our love shall last" and "Until our time together is over" are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow -- a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe for failure."

My thoughts on this are the latter. I think that if the mindset of the couple going into the marriage is "as long as we continue to love each other", it is a sad statement of the commitment level of the couple...and a sad statement of the non-committal mentality of the world that we live in.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said this, "It's a change for the worse. The 'death do us part' vow is really unconditional. Once you change it to 'as long as love shall last' or something of that nature, it's conditional. It's almost analogous to a prenuptial agreement — simply saying 'we hope it works out.' It goes against the grain of marriage."

I am not married, but when I do make those vows, I want my wife to know that I am in it for the long haul. Tough times will come, there will be days when the "love" that we feel for each other will have to be more than the fuzzy feeling that we get when we first said "I do". Love takes work sometimes...and to say that we are only in it as long as the love last is indeed a recipe for failure.