I don't see anything wrong with getting married. But I do think many people get married in order to *get* something: like security, support, someone to take care of & who will take care of them, and all the illusionary and often unspoken "debts" that come with marriage (you know, like "you married me, so you're not supposed to ever feel lust for anyone else" or "marriage means you have to give me a present every year (take me out once a week, go on all your vacations with me, keep no secrets from me, etc.).
I think marriage -- all romantic relationships, actually -- are spiritual opportunities for evolution, and the most successful ones (the ones in which all parties feel good and on purpose) are the ones in which each person takes 100% responsibility and is committed to:
Quote:
...discovering their capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion, personal greatness, and full self-expression. Nowhere else will you meet the grandest and smallest parts of yourself. Nowhere else will you confront your self-imposed limits to intimacy. Nowhere else can you forgive so deeply or love so purely.
This is relationship's real purpose: to serve the mutual growth and soulful expression of each individual. It's a chance to share your enthusiasm for being alive and give of yourself to another. Relationship provides the opportunity to shed light on any area within you that remains cloaked in fear and uncertainty, to hold a vision of another's greatness so that he may step into the magnificence his soul is yearning to express. In this way, relationship becomes the ultimate tool for personal discovery and spiritual growth.
When we engage in relationship to see what we can put into it rather than what we can get out of it, our whole lives transform.
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That's a quote from Marie Forleo's "Make Every Man Want You" (a misleading title -- it's really about personal development). She articulates so well the concept of 100% responsibility for living a life you love, without actually ever using that phrase.