Tuesday, July 23, 2019

In Sickness & In Health: What That Should Mean

When a couple gets married, they've spent months focusing on a wedding and not the life that comes after it. Adjusting to married life after you've made some big promises? Not always easy, but it doesn't mean it can't be done. Plenty of people marry their sweethearts and live a long and happy life together without much of a hiccup. Others? Others aren't that lucky.

Some marriages just don't work out in the end, and that's just life. There are also those marriages that are hit by storm after storm, and most of the time it's due to stress. Stress puts a lot of strain on a relationship. The bonds that people have together are pushed to the limits by health concerns, career concerns, children, and more. Life is hard enough to balance as it is, but when you have to consider the experience and feelings of another person, there's an additional pressure that you don't feel prepared to handle - particularly when health is concerned.
Man in Black Long-sleeved Shirt and Woman in Black Dress
You say the words, "in sickness and in health," when you say your vows. It means that whether you are super healthy and fit, or living with an illness, you are there for the person you love in spite of the disease they suffer. You learn more about what they are going through. You endeavor to make their life easy, and you support them through every moment of pain or sadness - for them. When you make your vows, you say them sincerely and openly, meaning every single word that you utter. What you don't expect is that you might have to abide by the sickness part. Marrying someone is a leap of faith, and staying by their side while they can't do things for themselves, or they're recovering from a scary illness? That's born of love, respect, and adoration for the person that they are.

Health is just one area of a marriage that can fail sometimes, but does that mean that the marriage itself fails? No, it doesn't have to. You make a choice in marriage to stay by the side of the person that you promised yourself to, and you push through the storms and the stress to come out of the other side fighting. Pressure can drive a couple apart, though it doesn't have to. If your spouse were sick at any point in your marriage, you wouldn't leave them for a cold, would you? You'd stay by their side and make it work as a team, a solid unit who can be together forever as you promised years ago.

A marriage is supposed to be until death you do part, and health can come in the way of the longevity of the life that you anticipated having. The key here is to look at the love you have and keep on keeping on. In sickness and in health? It's not just a phrase you say to get to the wedding reception. It's a promise and one that you should always endeavor to keep.