Tomorrow I will begin a weekly post series called BoWilliams.com On Marriage. It will run for each of the next ten Tuesdays.
What qualifies me to talk about marriage? Well, for one thing, mine is 16 years old as I type and still a happy one, and I think I understand a lot of the reasons why it is so. For another, I have some talent with the written word and can put those reasons down effectively.
More important is why I want to talk about marriage. I’m gravely concerned about it. It’s a troubled institution indeed. When we think of marriage, too many of us have strong opinions about silly things, and weak or nonexistent opinions about critical things. Too many of us have lost sight of what it’s supposed to mean. Too many of us have woefully insufficient concern for what its decay is doing to our society.
We’ve lost our way.
And the greatest tragedy of our wandering around in the wilderness is that understanding what makes a marriage work well is not difficult. It’s not a hard list to make. It’s neither long nor complex.
Most of our challenge is not in figuring out what to do, but in having the will to do it. That’s where I’ll be coming from.
And on that note—where I’m coming from—I’ll say this up front too. I’m a straight American male. I’ve never been anything else. I don’t know how it feels to be anything else.
I intend for my commentary and advice to be broadly applicable. I can’t not be a straight American male when I write it, though. Over the following ten posts, that perspective should never be read as exclusion or prejudice of any kind. If you have questions, ask them. But know up front that I’m bringing no malice to this effort.
I want to help. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this, and I’m ready to see how it goes. Come with me.
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I’ve always been a fan of this post:
https://bowilliams.com/2010/07/happily-married-means-no-plan-b/
Brian, man, love to hear that. Thank you for telling me.
The absence of perceived alternatives will feature heavily in a future post or two.