How to get married when your parents are crazy

Your parents are not really crazy mind you, just enough to flatten your chance of getting married in your 20s. The experiences you had growing up, and the messages you received from your parents, influence the way you see yourself, and hence your success in attracting a mate. When you want to date and get married, your parents will test and challenge you every step of the way. Further, the echo of their neurosis and fears will reverberated in your subconscious affecting your life choices.

Every memory I have, even the sweetest ones, are clouded with a little bit of regret and sorrow. Perhaps you feel the same? It is hard for me to even go back down memory lane, when often on the next turn is a painful memory. I had a bitter sweet childhood. However, I learned to overcome the experiences I was set up with,  forgive and not go to the dark-side. It is easy to say you understand  this, but are you married, what is holding you back?

To further complicate this, if your parents had a successful marriage, statistically, you will. If not, you will have to be aware of how not to repeat their mistakes.

• What you need to know is this: life really begins when you are married.

Life before you are married is a lower level of existence, basically every cell in your body is waiting for you to pair off and reproduce.  Today, despite my personal challenges from my long adolescence (lets say until age 30),  if you ask me how my life is, I would reply,  I am one of the happiest people I know. How is this?

Read my list below to put yourself on a self-correcting course. The purpose of this post is to give you ideas to get you back on track that leads to the alter.

Proposal for you:

I recommend to print this article and highlight the three points that are most relevant to your situation. When you have identified those three points, you can write me personally (contact page) or leave a comment. I will give some advice personal to your situation.

You have to get married

Let me lay all the cards on the table.  You have to get married, if you want a full rich happy life.  Do not believe the media/studies, as we know they are not objective and their mission to get attention is to shock you, and to tell you up is down and down is up. Do not believe the unhappy stories of others, because the lamenting tend to be the most vocal.  Trust me, I have legions of friends that are married and happy for many years, including myself. My parents have been happily married for over 65 years. That is real, life experience not a statistic.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics

• All the experiences I had when I was single, does not compare to one moment of being with my family. That is the truth.

If you want to rationalize away your birthright to be happily married go ahead, but it is a low level of existence. Like the Architect (the Sigmund Freud looking spokesman for the machines) in the Matrix said:

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept.

You have to get married because you need to have a partner to talk to. You need to have unrestricted physical relations. You need to get married because God wants us to, unless you pursue a life of monastic service to humanity.  I am a parent and having a child is amazing, you get to relive your childhood in a better way. Being married and having a family is not an option, it is the fulfillment of your deepest longings.

You want to pass on your genes rather than having your seed wiped from the face of the earth.

Then why do people (you) have such trouble getting married/with marriage?

It is because of the subconscious dialogue they have in their brain. Your beautiful perfect innocent tabula rasa you were born with, was corrupted by your environment. Yes your peers, and the media,  but more likely your parents imprinted messages early on that is your stumbling block. Further, your parents did not give adequate coaching on how to choose a mate and be happy.

In contrast, many parents give people the opposite information. Or the media and friends have told you that marriage is passé. Parents are good about telling  their kids about money and careers, but love is infinitely more important than money.  Parents  may even want you to get married, but do not tell you how specifically to pick a mate. They have picked a mate for you, or have their vision of a mate that is best suited for you. Do not do it. Find your own vision of love.

This is not about blaming our parents

They were doing the best they could, and they are truly great people,  my personal heroes,  but that does not mean they are not blocking you.  Some parents are too strict like mine, and some parents are too easy like some of my friends. The net effect is you need to overcome their programming. It is recognizing the pattern of thinking stopping you from getting married, where they came from, so you can get married and be happy.

The problem with the parental message about marriage

It is packed with emotion. Their vision of your mate is a manifestation of their insecurities and lack of confidence in you.  It is packed with fear and poor guidance. Your parents projected a lot of anger and fear on you. Maybe not everyone reading this, but there are a lot of parents from the last generation that knew little about good parenting.

Many parents have failed marriages or have given little or no coaching about love. For example, an acquittance of mine is a woman, almost 30 says she wants kids, but does not believe in marriage.  Wow that is messed up. Her father left her mother and is a playboy. I wonder if there is a connection. Be honest with yourself and examine your belief’s in relation to your parental experience.

An unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates

Also, examine the though of your potential mate. Smoke them out in terms of their true beliefs. Question them about their belief and their experiences growing up.

Below are is some advice/wisdom based on personal experience how to override your programming

The Bible says to ‘Honor your Mother and Father’. The greatest way to honor your Mother and Father is to not repeat their mistakes. To live your own life. To own your belief’s including those about love.

To thy own self be true

1. Get your parents out of your head – You need to be geographically away from your parents, if you have had even a hint of a toxic relationship with them. Move to another city, or Europe, like I did, like my brother did, or an opposite coast like my sister did. Yes, I did not get married until I moved to Europe and I temporarily banished myself from my family. In today’s economy it seems harder but, you can do it. In fact you can not afford to do it, if your parental relationship is toxic. In nature the bird pushes the little bird from the nest to fly. Once you are away from them call them maybe once a week or less on Sunday to let them know you are alive.  When you give your parents grandchildren they will love you more than if you are an adult child feeding off their emotional mammary ducts.
   

   The longer you stay with your parents to ‘save money’ you will be paying for it later with psychiatrists bills

2. Remove the noise – Try to engage in light conversations with your parents, and steer them away from topics like money and dating. Basically, when you call your parents you need to brace for impact. Then learn the art of steering them from life topics. I do not lie, but read my lips, do not have your hand on the Bible when talking to your parents.  Additionally, do not watch the news and be on Facebook more than a few minutes a day (you do not want feed your psyche junk food by attention fiends). You can in fact set Google News to just a few positive filters. Stay clear of Tinder or anything that will give you a cheap rush or ego boast. Basically clean up your eternal influences  including your parents subtle probes into your personal life.
3. Spend a lot of time dreaming about what you really want in a wife or husband? – Go back to what you think you wanted in your youth as a mate. Try to remember what you originally liked in a male or female physically. Was it long legs in a woman or a blond haired guy for example? Really take the time to be honest what you think is cordial. Fantasize about this person.
4. Do date people who believe marriage is forever. My first and most important rule is date an idealist. Someone that has a passion for their lofty ideals (not political) above everything else. This is often manifest in religion or yoga for example. This is centered on dating someone who believes in marriage in the abstract sense not just something to do. Why get married if it they believe love is conditional? People have vows that go “as long as the love shall last’. This is nonsense, marry someone who believes in ‘until death do us part’ – ‘for richer or poorer and sickness and in health’.  Women will say, ‘he has mental problems’. Well is that not sickness?  Stand by your man.
   

   You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by. And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye. -“Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

5. Do read books on marriage by religious writers.  You need to have this influence in your life. You need to deprogram your mind from the media and even your parents. You need your life to be an instrument of the Divine. Do date people who have a passion for reading positive meaningful books and movies. Not liberal psycho babel, but real books like the Bible, by Saints or Christian writers,  or books on yoga or Yogic writers, or transcendentalist like Thoreau and Emerson. Read books not by psychologists, the modern day sophists, but spiritual leaders. It does not matter the specific ones,  there are thousands of books, as long as they are positive and stand for ideals above day to day life.
6. Do date sensitive people – Sincere, painfully sensitive gentle, forgiving people. Date people that apologize often. Insensitive people will cause you a life of misery. Find someone with real caring and emotion, that you can complain to. Marry and empath. This will not lead to endless complaining, but rather, they will inspire you to be strong for them.
7. Do not date materialistic people Love and money are opposites. Parents often over emphasis career.

You can have two of three things in life. Money, health or love. You choose the two you want.

Do not date trashy people Swearing, selfish, smoking, non-prayerful/non-meditating people. The world is filled with base people. Love them but do not marry them.

Your parents might believe that no one is good enough for you. Although my parents have been married over 65 years, no one was good enough for any of their five children. This is a common fallacy parents project on children, because they want to protect their kids or they are generally judgmental. The person who is good enough is the person who you are attracted to and will love you forever with gentleness and kindness.

Parents or other will say: Marrying a beauty does not matter, its the inside that counts. This is ridiculous, no this is ridonculous.  I say go for someone you think is cordial, because you are going to wake up the rest of your life next to this person and smile at them every night, trust me you want to go for cordial to maximize your happiness. Is that not a huge reason people get married? That is to have ‘physical relations’. Go for someone who does it for you on a physical level, then make sure they are a Godly, sensitive, intellectually curious person.

You think: You are not attractive enough to marry a beautiful person – Lucky for you, because of a millions of years of evolution there is no way you are not attractive. Evolution has made it so that everyone has a physical allure and sensuality. Everyone can be cordial. You just have to get in shape and have the right style.

Society tell you: Marriage is about fighting and jocking for position and dominance. Wrong, marriage is never about splitting control 50-50 or anything remotely related to power. Find a mate that is gives 100% and you give 100% without question to their who is on top or has that 1% edge. For example, what if one of you is in a coma? Love is about giving yourself fully and find someone who believes the same.

Your fears tell you: Marriage is about a ‘practical’, ‘reasonable’, choice.– Marriage is about primitive irrational desires for gene replication, based on deep subconscious longings and fantasies of youth. Marriage is not a business transaction. How is it practical I left my $100,000 plus job and lived in another country, in a 200 square foot apartment, for many years to marry a poor girl from the countryside? Did I make the right choice? Yes you bet, the best choice of my life.

Realize that your parents arguing traumatized you. – Realize it was not about you but about their fears. The Bible talks about sins being passed down from generation to generation. I always thought this was bunk, in the literal sense, but it is real if you understand that this energy might express itself from parent to child and echo though many generations.

Parents tell you: You need to get your career going and money established before you can think about marriage. – If that is true, why do people where I live, have seven kids and have no money, while the career oriented women have one child in day care? You need no money, only love to have a family. Kids need love, not career parents.

Parents will tell you: You need to married someone in your same social-economic class. – I went to an all boys English boarding school in New England, my wife daughter of a farmer growing up in communist Poland. We are so happy. Social class means nothing.

What if you are still too connected to your parents in a business.  If this is holding you back in anyway move away as far as you can. Out of sight out of mind.

You think: People will look funny at you if you have a foreign spouse.  Boundaries are for politicians not for love. We are all God’s children and God knows no political boundaries despite what the drum beating politicians, nationalists and ideologues tell you. You have visa issues, there are always ways to legally live in the same country. It might not be the country of your choice but there are always ways.

What if parents want to arrange a marriage for you and you need to comply. – Arranged marriages do work, but I prefer a love marriage. I believe you create your own destiny. Defy logic and tradition and go with what your instinctual drive tell you. You need to marry someone your parents would approve of, social obligation and honor to your family – wrong. – You need to find the love of your life.

 You might think: You are not smart enough to provide a good life for your family and live the dream. – Again, if evolution brought you here, you have the brains. It is simple evolution that has honed your instinct to survive and you can. Instinct kicks in when it needs to. We grow our own food for example.

You might believe: You are bad and do not deserve happiness. Wrong.

You parents were too busy to listen or care when you were growing up. – I know and with my daughter I try not to listen but to really be there with her. Parents are busy chasing money but most important is the family.

Your parents said small spiteful things or large hurtful things to you. – You need to let it go.

There is one way to literally go back in time and change the past. It is to forgive. Forgiveness is the best time machine there is.

You feel you wasted so much time – I felt this way and my older brother said, it does not matter about that, what matters is what you do with your life now.

You feel, there is no soul mate only nice choices. -Trust me your soulmate is out there, it is the person you have a family with. If you can not find your soulmate you are looking in the wrong places. Do not look on Tinder. Look in real life in yoga retreats or church or clubs but not Tinder.

 People will tell you: Marriage is a legal contract. False. Marriage is not about assets and contracts, it is about mating. All life is programmed for reproduction. It is the strongest drive there is, even above survival. Nature basically wants you to survive to reproduce. That is why you look good during your reproductive years. If you do not find your mate and reproduce life will not reward you with all the intangible goodness of those who are single will never understand. Less eloquently expressed, you need to get married to have ‘physical relations’ on a regular and frequent basis. Also immense emotional and spiritual rewards. You can be the biggest hook up artist in the world, but you do not have access this unless you are married. Even if you are single and living with someone it is not the same. It will never be the same.

 What is your scenario? You come from a home raised by a step father or step mother. You come from a single parent home. You parents are divorced. It does not matter, you can have love and marriage by jettisoning their wrong ideas.

In conclusion

If I listen to my parents I would either focus on my career or marry one of my parent’s rich friend’s daughters. Boring.
If you listen to your parents programming then: when you are old and sitting in your rocker, and people ask you how was the party, you are going to say, ‘what party?’.

Is this the experience you want have on this earth? You get one life and your experience is to play it safe. What a cowardly way to live.
Much, no really all, of my twenties I basically was either angry or I felt I was like a bird with a broken wing, just hobbling along in life.
Like the spiritual song sung by 19th century American slaves:

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

Everybody thinks that others can not understand what they went through. What personal hell you have endured. Worst I festered in the pendulum of regret and sorrow, the dark side, like drinking salt water that never quenched me.

I decided to reprogram myself, I did yoga and prayed and visualized (prefer to meditation as it is more active as I like most people are slightly ADD).

• My message is find the winning system that will liberate you from your patterns. Give visualization and prayer a chance in letting go of the past and creating your vision of your happy future.

My message is not matter what life experience brought you to adulthood, you can reprogram yourself and be happily ever after with your family. It is your birthright and do not let anyone, including your parents, friend or society, swindle that from you.

References:

The Transmission of Marital Instability Across Generations: Relationship Skills or Commitment to Marriage?
Paul R. Amato; Danelle D. DeBoer
The Journal of Marriage and Family, November 2001

The legacy of parents’ marital discord: Consequences for children’s marital quality.
Amato, Paul R.; Booth, Alan
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 81(4), Oct 2001, 627-638.

Intergenerational Transmission of Marital Quality and Marital Instability
Du Feng, Roseann Giarrusso, Vern L. Bengtson and Nancy Frye
Journal of Marriage and Family
Vol. 61, No. 2 (May, 1999), pp. 451-463