The ring on your finger....

When two people are so in love, the next step they would want is to be together. The proper way is to go through matrimony receiving blessings from everyone. To be official acknowledged as husband and wife is blissful. Some do it in Church followed by Tea Reception and Dinner. Some do it in the Temple kneeling in front of Buddha to pledge their love. Some do it the Muslim way.

Beautiful wedding bands..many girls’ dreams. To find someone who loves us and someone we love is a life time goal to most girls. To Love and To Hold, so holy and binding. Different religion or ethnic group does their vows differently. Below are some of the vows :

The marriage vows….(in front of the Commissioner of Oath)

"To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

Hindu marriage vows ….

“are known as Saat Phere and consist of 7 verses spoken by the couple as they take a step for each. When after the seventh step the groom says to the bride "With seven steps we have become friends. Let me reach your friendship. Let me not be severed from your friendship. Let your friendship not be severed from me." they are pronounced husband and wife.

Roman Catholic
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, take and wear this ring as sign of my love and faithfulness.

The blissfulness lasted as long as the couple is in love. How many really honor their vows? A friend said ‘Dear Lian, Love dies…and only commitment and responsibility will bind you together. To love and to hold, to give and take, to err and to forgive – through richness and poverty’…time will prove how strong will the ‘bands’ last.

The marriage path is not easy to maintain. When two people growing up from different families and are brought up with different values. What if these values clash? Two different people with different characters come together, what happen? When one party is always the giving one and the other party is ‘I don’t bother type’? When one is sensitive and the other one has ‘low EQ’?

Marriage - marri…and ..age…together is a lesson you will never learn from any books. Not even from the experiences of married people. Every couple is different, their problem is different, their expectation is different, education is different, upbringing is different, and thinking is different….EFFORT and FORGIVING..it is only with these that the vows will see the couple to the ‘tombs’.

I came very close to wearing the ‘Wedding Band’. It is now a souvenir…a reminder that once upon a time someone loves me enough to give me a ‘band’.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not bad mouthing marriage neither am I discouraging it. Below are some happenings to friends....

1) They are facing a marriage breakdown - cannot communicate anymore.
2) Some on the way to divorce.
3) Some – you live your life and I live mine. Meaning husband has husband’s ‘fun’ and wife have wife’s ‘fun’.
4) Some husband and wife slogging like crazy to help make ends meet.
5) Some have husband and ‘boy friend’.
6) Some have wife and ‘girl friend’.
7) Some pretend even though they know their wives are fooling around ‘under their nose’.
8) Some married because they have to. For girls, the ‘biological’ clock is ticking.
9) Some married because mother says must get a wife and produce the lineage.

Wedding Band…put around your finger…and you got stuck there. You become an equipment. You are a child producing machine, you are a desire/ lust letting go machine, you are a washing machine, a vacuum clearer, rice cooker, housemaid, car washer, ATM machine and many more.

Today I am really mad over a friend’s dilemma. We were classmates. I saw her ‘husband’ before they were married and I don’ think very highly of him. Snobbish, arrogant and he thinks he is the smartest and cleverest man around. Phew.w.w.w! Every time my girl friend’s talk, he will run her down. Of course he likes talking to me…I gave him all the barbs! Men…are they sick or what? You are nice to them…they think you got ‘no brain’…when you are ‘tough’, they think you are attractive! Cantonese says ‘Jin Kak’…!

Honey, after signing the papers today…you don’t cry anymore. I cannot tahan you like that. It makes me very ‘pek chek’..and my ‘fire’ all rising. That ex-husband of yours needs a ‘chiak charbo’. I said before you are too good for him.

Girls, when we fall in love can we reserve 30% for keeping? At least you will not be so badly hurt when it's over.