Giving 100% ?

Saying, “I do,” may be the easiest two words for the bride and groom to say on their wedding day. Yet, following through with the meaning of those two words will be the hardest, most challenging and strenuous work of that union between the man and wife.  

Literature, music, customs, and philosophies of whatever culture we live in and through, will influence, effect, and impact our marriage. 

Unbeknownst to me, while a teen in the 1970s, the philosophy of the women’s liberation movement affected my life. This philosophy was talked about, written about and sung about. 

I was a teeny bopper back then. I drove my mother’s orange Volkswagen, doing her errands and listening to Aretha Franklin and Helen Reddy on the car radio. 

Aretha and Helen’s songs were my anthems. I belted out the words: “I am woman hear me roar,” and “R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Sock it to me…”

Men, in general, seemed to be the enemy and I could relate. My father, who’d been a man, had ended his life by suicide. I took his suicide very personally. He’d betrayed me. I’d trusted him and he proved untrustworthy. I had been hurt by a man. At the time it was easy for me to see all men as the enemy.

My teen years were by far the most vulnerable, naive and gullible years of my life. I ingested the women’s liberation movement ideas without knowing exactly what I was eating. 

Though my philosophy of men, women and equal rights was ill formed and ill fitted, I carried it, albeit unconsciously, into my marriage.

When we say, “I do,” on our wedding day, of course we have no idea what difficulties are ahead of us. I did not receive the universal memo that would have informed me that marriage guarantees hard times. Instead, I’d imagined a life of blissfulness. 

The first speed bump that forced me to stop and take a look at my misconstrued ideas of marriage and men was a conversation between my husband and me about shared chores.

I believed in equal rights, an even 50 50 split right down the middle of doing whatever needed doing. I told my husband that we’d equally share the duties of laundry, grocery shopping, house cleaning, hauling water, getting the winter wood in and cooking.  

He listened patiently and attentively before he told me, “Well, I believe in 100%, not 50-50.” 

Whoah! What was this radical thought? Where did he come up with his philosophy?

It took me a while to digest his words. But as we proceeded to remain married and wade our way through difficulties, I changed my tune from 50-50 to 100%. 

In the first three years of our marriage we encountered a legal issue concerning access to our property, plowing through deep snow with a jerry rigged snow plow and a leaky roof. Instead of each of us just giving half of ourselves to the marriage, we each gave our 100%

It made all the difference in the world.

Why Bother?

Why bother giving 100%? It’s been said that when we go through hard times we see what we are made up of. In hard times, guaranteed in marriage, giving only 50% of myself would have proven lethal. Thankfully, I changed my tune.