Marriage 1.0

Someone forwarded me the following email today, which is obviously written to be funny, even though it is based on very common real life experiences that are anything but funny. Maybe you’ve read it before. You may have even responded with a hearty LOL. But what is really so funny about it? For some, it may be one of those laugh to keep from crying kind of situations. Well, here’s the “cute” email (in italics), followed by my perspectives:

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a
distinct slow down in overall system performance — particularly in
the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under
Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs,
such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed
undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes
the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but
to no avail.

What can I do?
Signed, Desperate
——————————————————

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while
Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: ‘I
Thought You Loved Me.exe’ and try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t
forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then
automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, over use of the above application can cause Husband 1.0
to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1
is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in
the background that will eventually seize control of all your system
resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are
unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0 .

In summary, Husband 1.0is a great program, but it does have limited
memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider
buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We
recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck, Tech Support

Men are schmucks and marriage sucks, and it is the plight of women to bear the burden of them both! Ha Ha. If this email hits a little too close to home, and your version of Marriage 1.0 is not at all the program you saw advertised on the box, take heart and read on. If you think I’m getting way too serious about this, and you just enjoyed reading the cute email forward – feel free to enjoy reading through it again and passing it on to your friends, but you may not want to read the rest of my post.

“First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.” Sad, but often true. Boyfriend 5.0 and Girlfriend 5.0 are often designed primarily as entertainment programs. As one of my professors used to say, “The engagement period is the time of greatest deception in the life of a relationship.” This was a guy who has logged countless hours working with couples over the years, and clearly had the experience to back up a bold statement like this. Don’t we all deeply long to be loved and accepted for who we are?! And there comes that time in most of our lives where we find someone we enjoy so much that we decide to do whatever we can to keep them around for the rest of our lives. Perhaps more importantly for some of us, we find someone in whose presence we enjoy our selves so much that we decide to do whatever we can to keep them around for the rest of our lives.

One of the ways this can become seriously problematic is when we get so caught up in doing whatever we can to keep them around that we forget how to just enjoy our selves and our lover as we share each other’s company. And so, we become deceptive – posturing and compromising the desires, convictions, and identity of our true selves in order to present ourselves as the person we think they really want. This illusion may hold for quite some time, perhaps all the way through the time of courtship and engagement, and maybe even through the early days of marriage. But the veneer eventually wears off. We spend enough time around one another with our guard down that we see glimpses of the real person. And sometimes we don’t like what we see. At the same time, we eventually tire of all the posing, and begin to just be our selves. And sometimes this isn’t pleasant for our spouses.

But you know what? I believe two individuals who are willing to take the sacred vows of marriage with one another have every right to be free to be themselves. In fact, I think virtually everyone who gets married longs for it to be a relationship where they will feel safe and secure enough to do just that, without the threat of harm for having exposed them selves and made them selves vulnerable. Don’t you want that in your relationship with your mate? I sincerely hope you can grow in the courage, determination, and love for your self and your spouse to step out from behind the costume and be real.

Look for more installments to my Marriage 1.0 series in the coming weeks.