THE SEVENTH VOW




Pic.: Anima D'Cunha
I think, if ‘Stay Invested’ is a golden advice for success in equity market, ‘Stay Married’ is the golden advice for success in married life...
On your wedding day, you might complete pronouncing the Seven Vows in seven minutes... but, to translate your vows, you need a life-time. That’s why, it is said, “Wedding is a day; Marriage is a life-time!”
Love that holds together a life-time marriage is not all pink hearts and sweet nothings. Love, there, expects your heart to constantly long, open, embrace, break, ache, amend, apologize, forgive, promise, trust, again fail, again try and again, again and again try...
Yes, you might spend crores on your wedding ‘show’, fly to the most exotic places in the world for your honeymoon... you might give each other the whole world as gifts... you might display an enviable show of affection in public... but, then, yes, but then... Love is so simple and uncomplicated... that, to love your partner, you just need a longing, giving and forgiving heart... simple... least demanding, least expecting and enormously trusting.
If so, why does Love seem so missing in marriage... as if, the seven vows were meant to be only for seven days? Why is that obsession to change him and change her? Why this intolerance with almost everything and anything about him or her... Yes, the very thing that once attracted you, now, you have no patience to deal with... You want only ‘your’ way in marriage... Why so?
Whatever happened to the fifth vow? You had said to her: “You are my best friend and staunchest well-wisher. You have come into my life, enriching it. God bless you.” And, you had replied to him: “I promise to love and cherish you as long as I live. Your happiness is my happiness, and your sorrow is my sorrow.”
If diamond cannot come from coal unless the coal is taken through such endurance, unless someone puts it through such rigorous test... the bliss called ‘love and companionship’ in marriage cannot come through unless the marriage stands the similar test...

It is finding love in your differences... by learning to value them, honor them, celebrate them...
It is finding the beauty in each others’ flaws... by learning to make space for your partner to overcome them, without making a huge hue and cry over it...
It is finding the joy of freedom... by learning to let go of the rigidity and self-righteousness...
It is finding the richness of love that you are blessed right here, right now... by learning to appreciate what you are already blessed with...
It is finding your own growth in your partner’s growth and rejoicing over it... it is feeling the ache when your partner’s heart bleeds...
It is growing together, beautifully... as real companions...
And, how else is it possible unless you stay married... long and humble, strong and vulnerable? How else can the diamond called ‘love and companionship’ emerge unless the marriage passes the test of endurance?
To be happy in marriage, you need to believe in a simple definition of marital happiness... You need to evolve from your first vow: the promise of food, finance and family... to the seventh and final promise of true friendship, togetherness and companionship...
Today, my wife and I are completing twenty-three years of marriage. We are ordinary mortals like everyone else around is... Nobody had trained us to be a fine couple... Like everyone else did, we learnt it - and are still learning - along our way... As Charles Dickens famously said in his novel ( ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ ) – “It was the best of times... It was the worst of times” – we, too, had our best moments and our worst moments... But, we both know one thing: Unless we stay put, stay long and stay together – yes, in our good times and bad times - the seventh vow will never ever be translated...
As we renew our vows, today, we seek your good wishes and blessings...

GERALD D’CUNHA

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