First Comes Marriage...THEN comes love?

Had a nice dinner out with Mr. No Touchy-Feely last weekend. He did open up a little more, talking about his parents and siblings. His parents are divorced, and I think there may be some issues with his siblings. Still nothing more than a hug and a kiss on the cheek, even though it was our ELEVENTH “date” (!). I’m curious about his friends – like, does he have any? When we get together I’ll mention that I saw a movie with this friend or went to a concert with that friend, but he never mentions any friends. I’ve heard that’s a red flag.

The Nicest Guy in the World definitely has friends. But he, too, has a couple of issues that worry me. Then again, who doesn’t? I recently read about a book by Reva Smith called “First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages” (http://www.aapress.com/Arts_&_Entertainment/Entries/2008/7/5_First_Comes_Marriage.html), which argues that we can learn a lot from cultures that have arranged marriages. Apparently it’s quite possible to get married first and fall in love afterward. Smith’s parents were happily married even though they had an arranged marriage, and when she was growing up, she couldn’t tell the difference between her parents’ friends whose marriages had been arranged and those who were “love matches.”

The seven “secrets” that Smith claims we can learn from arranged marriages are: 1) Your man doesn’t have to be your best friend; 2) The musts are all that matter; 3) Commitment is the opposite of constraint; 4) It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t dance: the danger of confusing common interests with shared values; 5) Romance needs a rewrite; 6) His sex appeal? It’s all about you; and 7) Family matters: a higher purpose = long-term happiness. Interestingly, “love matches tend to have the height of ‘feelings and emotions’ at the beginning of the relationship and then gradually diminish over the next 5 years. Whereas with arranged marriages, the couples generally feel ‘neutral’ towards each other at the beginning, with love building over the next 5 years, often surpassing love matches at or before the 5-year mark.” I’m not sure that’s a rousing recommendation for arranged marriage, however. Say that there’s a couples’ happiness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “we hate each other” and 10 being “we’re madly in love and so blissfully happy, we don’t want to live without each other.” A love match might start out feeling like a 10, whereas an arranged couple might begin at a completely neutral 5. After a few years, the love match has gone down to a 7 while the arranged couple has gone up to a 7. So if you’re going to end up in the same state of happiness anyway, shouldn’t you try to find someone with whom you can experience that amazing high of a 10, even if it doesn’t last forever?

I can see the advantages of arranged marriages in communities where that’s encouraged. If almost everyone’s marriage is arranged, marriage is thought of in a completely different way – it’s a practical matter. You don’t expect your spouse to be the love of your life. Basically, you get married not because you’re so in love that you can’t imagine life without that person; you get married so that you can produce children to continue the community after you’re gone. But to have an arranged marriage in this culture would be a lot more difficult – always the temptation to compare your marriage with everyone else’s “love match” (not to mention with the Hollywood ideal).

It got me thinking…what exactly am I looking for? Someone I genuinely enjoy spending a lot of time with, who treats me well, who has his life together enough to commit to a lasting relationship, and who feels the same way about me that I do about him. That’s it. But that’s tough to find!