WEDDINGS VS MARRIAGES

My love muffin and I are gearing up for our 3^rd wedding in a week. We love weddings. It’s a time to reflect on the love shared by those taking the step in holy matrimony. It’s also a time that we realize how lucky we are that we found “the one.” Weddings are a nice opportunity to dress up, dance a little and enjoy a free meal but lately I feel like weddings have become a mockery. I feel like many couples miss the purpose. Let it be known that I don’t feel that way about the three weddings we are attending in July. This blog isn’t directed to one couple but rather the many couples who don’t take marriages seriously. In a way, I feel like people think marriages and weddings are one of the same. Whereas there are clear differentiations.

Allow me to explain. A wedding is a reception where people overspend, overcompensate and over indulge simply to make more of an individualistic statement as opposed to a cohesive statement of love. Anyone can throw a wedding. Anyone can go out and buy flowers, dresses, priests, banquet halls and flowers but the truth is not all of us can find a deeper sense and purpose in life. As a matter of fact most data shows that nearly 50% of all marriages end in divorce http://www.divorcerate.org/.

There are many reasons why this occurs. They include spiritual, financial, infidelity, personal goals. I am not a clergy nor do I profess to have a degree in human psychology but being a married man myself, I tend to think that marriages end before they even begin. People get caught up in the moment, women are groomed to visualize this day from an early age and eager parents are ready to show off in front of their friends. There is so much fanfare, societal pressure and anticipation that weddings seem like a good idea in principle but they often are contrived performances in a dooming theatrical production.

There is no right or wrong scenario that makes the recipe for a successful marriage. I’ve heard of two people who were each under the age of 20, they dated for 2-months, while they were still in college and didn’t have 2 nickels to rub together. They felt like they were ready for that commitment. That couple recently celebrated their 25^th wedding anniversary. I’ve seen a couple in their late 30’s, with a beautiful home and terrific careers. They got married and divorced in a matter of 3 weeks. Every situation is different but I’ll share with you my own journey as I feel like I really thought things through and considered the ramifications of marriage way before I took those vows in front of 215 friends and family. I admit that we are not the perfect couple but we are the right couple. I strongly believe we followed a plan to ensure our wedding would lead us into a scenario where a divorce would not be on the horizon.

We met in January, 2005. After dating exactly 1-year, my love muffin left for a 6-month trip to Australia. After both being loyal and true during that time, I personally felt in my heart that marriage could be a possibility. I made three decisions at that point of my life.

1. I started saving for a ring. Although I’m not a materialistic person by nature, I knew this would be the one piece of jewelry my love muffin would be wearing the rest of her life and it will be something that we’d be leaving for our children and grandchildren. This ring will essentially be an heirloom. Unlike a weddings that last 6 hours. This is something that will be passed on through generations.
2. I returned to school. I knew in order to better provide for my wife, I needed something stronger than a bachelor’s degree. An MBA is the most prestigious graduate degree you can earn. At some point in my life I may decide to utilize this to advance my career objectives but as of now, I have it in my back-pocket and I wanted these studies completed before any marriage could take place.
3. I bought a condo. I am strong believer that by buying property you are buying future wealth. Not to mention that I went from a place that I rented to a place where I could repaint, retouch and call my own. I wanted a place that my wife and I could live for a period of time before going graduating into a family home.

In January, 2007, I was living in the new condo, I was in the middle of classes for my MBA and I was pretty close to saving up enough money for the ring. It was at that juncture we celebrated our 2-years of dating by going on a cruise to Mexico. It was the first time we ever discussed the possibility of marriage with each other. After coming back from that trip, everyone looked at us as a couple who was engaged to be engaged.

From January 2007 – May of 2007, I did some self-exploration. I did some informal questioning of my friends, my family and even strangers on the meaning and importance of marriage. For those who knew my love muffin, I asked them what they thought of her as a suitable wife. The truth is what I already knew in my heart but the answers were reassurance. I also met with a Rabbi and joined his synagogue because my wife belonged to that same synagogue and I knew this Rabbi would be the one officiating our wedding.

Then in May of 2007, I proposed to my love muffin at her college graduation. My biggest fear was her getting a job to support our mortgage. So we decided to have a longer engagement to allow time for her to get the career going. We waited 18-months from our engagement until the day we got married. At that point she was working and all settled into our condo. I was done my MBA and we had known each other nearly 4-years. The timing was ideal. The bottom-line was that every step of this process was carefully planned and thought out.

In contrast, I know people who are impulsive. They fall into the trap of getting married because weddings are fun, you get some money, it’s cool to party and it’s a great opportunity to network. In other words “Lets scope out the bridesmaids to see who I can marry next.” It’s a way for them to feel more grown up, mature and on par with married friends. In a way you can blame the individuals for this behavior but there is also a lot of standards of society that push us to get married too.. If you are a woman in your late 30’s and you’ve never been married, the natural curiosity is “what is wrong with her?” For guys in their late 30’s who have never been married, there is no curiosity. It’s actually pretty natural for people to assume “Gee, he must be gay.”

My point is there needs to be a happy medium. People need time to let a relationships maturate before being side-tracked with wedding plans. I think it is very reasonable to date at least 1 year and be engaged for least 1 year before getting married. After two years you should have a good metric on whether this relationship may work out in the long-run. During these two years, you should not be separated by distance. I believe distance relationships can make the heart grow fonder but you need at least two years of being in the same location to give your relationship momentum, growth and nurturing.

Most importantly, I think before you are married you need to ask yourself some simple but poignant questions.

1. Am I ok with sharing my bed and home with this same person every night till the day I die? It’s a simple statement but it’s the true reality. This is the person you will be waking up next to forever.
2. Can I tolerate this person? If your spouse is OCD, or has weird hygiene habits, or likes to leave dirty dishes in the sink, or has outlandish political views, or has an annoying friend they like to hang out with, or have an overbearing mother, or snores like a horse, etc. Can you put that aside in the betterment of your marriage?
3. Do we have a strong foundation? (I.E living somewhere other than your mother-in-laws attic, finished school, have a job, have a plan, share a common goal, cohesive spiritual beliefs).

Allow me to pontificate upon one particular marriage gone so wrong that it’s literally causing me the urge to punch TLC in the face for the overexposure of minors. That’s right it’s the Jon and Kate Gosselin saga. They met in October, 2007. They were engaged and married in the span of 18-months. Kate was 24 and Jon was 22. Nine months later they were pregnant with twins and within 5 years of marriage they had sextuplets. Here are two parents who spent only a few years building their life together and now they were both under 30 years old with 8 children.

I watched the show a few times and I know it’s hard to past judgments on people when you are only seeing edited versions of their life but it was pretty easy to see the writing on the wall. Here are two young people who really can’t give a full commitment to marriage when they are constantly devoted to caring for 8 children and managing this TLC enterprise. During interview segments you can feel their tension and a strong sense of disrespect towards each other. When they separated after 10-years of marriage, I felt as though it was specifically caused by their life being carefully documented on camera. It wasn’t a healthy environment for their marriage and in truth it isn’t a healthy environment for their children who don’t know any other life other than being seen on camera.

The thought should be that this show close shop so the family can move on with their lives. Jon and Kate should get regular jobs like the rest of us and work together to properly raise these children. Better yet they can get some counseling and reconcile their own marriage. It may even be easier without cameras. This was not the case in there warped logic. Jon is off in the French Rivera having relations with a gal ten years his junior on the yacht of some worldly fashion designer. Meanwhile Kate is at home with the kids and the nannies. When Jon returned home he told reporters that he was back in town to shoot episodes for the upcoming season. What???? How about this as more caring answer “I’m home because I miss my kids and need to see them.”

It is quite evident that the show is less about chronicling the trials and tribulations of raising 8 children. It is more about this show being a cash cow so that mommy and daddy never have to work again. TLC is getting big advertiser dollars. Parlay that with a few books, merchandise and free giveaways (ala a 1.2 million dollar house nestled in Berks County). This show illustrates everything that is wrong with marriage.

I don’t profess to know everything about marriage. What I do know is both sets of my grandparents were married nearly 50 years each. My parents are on the brink of 40 years of marriage, My in-laws have been married over 30-years and they each taught me the basic “C’s, Communication, Compromise and Compassion. These values are truly evident in my marriage and should be in any marriage.

I’m not going to lie but I was uncomfortable with the magnitude and over-planning of our wedding. I thought it was over the top But in the long-run it didn’t matter as much because I took an oath. A soldier doesn’t take an oath and abandon his unit while at war much like I don’t take an oath under the chupa and abandon my marriage. It is something that is taken too lightly in society.

I love weddings but you know what I love more than weddings? Marriages.

MICHAEL JACKSON – THE UNTRIBUTE

You can’t take away the talent. It was always there. He danced with the ease of Gene Kelly and Fred Aistare. You can’t take away the longevity of a career. Nearly 40 years and several generations, he managed to captivate and cultivate audiences of every generation across the country and across the world. 13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles in his solo career, and the sale of 750 million records worldwide. To this day, “Thriller” is the number one selling album of all time. He revolutionized music videos and is simply the undisputed champion of entertainers of all time. There are only 7 people in the world whose death would be a more dominant media story (Barack Obama, Both Bushes, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Osama Bin Laden and The Pope). Yet, I’d like to be the contrarian that says that Michael Jackson was not the greatest soul that ever lived. He had his faults.

I recognize that it’s tough to beat a man when he is already down (or in this particular case never getting back up) but there was something real about Michael Jackson…Real Creepy. Michael Jackson was many things. Among them, a drug abuser, an irresponsible money handler who feverishly outspent his cash flows on things such as fake fatherhoods (more on that later in the blog). Most disturbing, he was a child molester, which to those of us without money means we do jail time. I recognize that he was acquitted of the charges but in this case of Michael Jackson, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t guilty of the charges. Where there is smoke, there is fire and his reputation for little boys was blazing hot for many years.

When he was accused of molestation charges in 1993, I remember thinking that it was a ploy to extort money from a very wealthy entertainer. But my thoughts quickly changed as my logic told me that an innocent man doesn’t pay $22 million dollars to someone unless he feels he isn’t guilty of something. The accusations continued in 2003 after Jackson admitted in a television interview that he sometimes sleeps in the bed of children who are not his own. This was followed by 7 more counts of child abuse charges being filed against him. A trial ensued and after lots of antics, fanfare and a bizarreness that can’t even be scripted by the most creative writers in Hollywood, Michael Jackson once again beat the charges and moved to Bahrain where he was carefully protected by members of Islam security team. He spent much of the last few years living as a recluse avoiding any media contact.

In between these earlier inappropriate acts of loving children a little too much, he tried to soften his image by getting married…twice. The first to Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of the original “King.” The whole thing stunk of publicity stunt. From the fact that the marriage took place in a foreign country, where records can not be verified, to the timeliness of it around his child molestation charges, to the blatantly scripted kiss on the MTV Movie Awards show. My guess is that it was a quixotic marriage filled with a platonic understanding. Had it been a marriage filled with passion and romance, babies would have been born. After two years, the farce marriage ended but the friendship remained.

In 1997, Jackson married again. This time to his longtime dermatologist, Debbie Rowe. She bore two children for him but as we now learned, neither of the children are his or Debbies. It was an anonymous sperm donor and egg donor (sometimes known as test tube babies). Rowe served as surrogate, at which she was compensated very handsomely for her efforts of labor. When they divorced, she had no problem relinquishing her parental rights to Jackson. Why would she, there is no DNA of hers whatsoever in those kids. In essence, Michael purchased these children. He could have easily adopted but he chose to lead the public in believing he loved his wife and that they procreated together. What other explanation can there be? He later mysteriously had another child with another woman. Who knows who she is and whether Michael actually used his own sperm this time. My guess is that the mother will step forward and try to claim this child when she finds out how much the child is worth.

Some people may be disturbed with Michaels spending habits. The man died with $400 million dollars in debt. I couldn’t spend that much money even if I tried. It is estimated that it cost $55,000 a day to keep the Neverland Ranch active for the many boys and girls hoping to be…hmm…touched by Michael Jacksons amusement experience. The truth is that he does have a lot of financial liabilities but he also has a lot of assets. He ruthlessly outbid Paul McCartney for the publishing rights to the Beatles, he owned several homes and the residuals on his own music put his wealth in the billions. I’m not one to point fingers at spending as I’m constantly struggling to keep my own debts to a manageable levels but I’m also not out buying monkeys, ferris wheels or childrens’ silence. According to Jackson’s former financial advisor, the singer spent $8 million annually on plane charters, antiques, paintings, hotel rooms, travel and other personal expenses.

Then there is the drug usage. You know that thing that ultimately took his life at age 50. There is tremendous speculation on what he took, when he took it and how often he took it but the bottom-line is that he did take something, took them often and it ultimately killed him. Blame it on the stress of celebrity, maybe give some blame to the abuse he took as child from Papa Jackson or blame it on his addictive personality. The truth is Jackson was addicted to many types of prescribed drugs and his doctors / friends ultimately were his enablers. I will never know what its like to have that sort of addiction but one thing I’m pretty sure about is that I have a family and support of friends that would have intervened and saved me before imminent death.

Lastly, let’s discuss these “friends of Michael Jackson.” Seems as though many of these people are coming forward after his death. Wait till they start writing books. Where were they when he really needed their help? The irony is not one single friend wants to recognize Jackson’s history of child molestation, nor recognize his illegitimate marriages or illegitimate children. To them, Jackson is not only the greatest entertainer to ever live (something I can’t dispute or discredit) but Jackson was also the greatest person to ever live. How could Jackson who was so lonely in his own skin, a man so eccentric, a man who possessed the most idiosyncratic behavior while abusing himself and others not surround himself with people many people who wouldn't direct him to safer grounds. These friends are now coming out of the woodwork but not one of them cared enough to save him from his missteps.

Michael Jackson is one of a kind figure. There is no one better and maybe no one who will ever be better in entertaining the masses. His music is truly a treasure. I am also a fan of his career. But we must not forget that just because someone dies, we should not recognize that their life wasn't just one simple equation but rather it should be measured by the sum of all parts. In Jacksons case it was filled with shame, torture and demons that eventually led to the death of a true American icon.