Marriage - The Gate to Divorce

       Here in this place, in ITB, with most of my friends being the kind of people who didn't want to make an uncommitted relationship with someone of their opposite gender, I learned some quite special things about marriage. We are the people who think that marriage is much better than having a temporary boyfriend or girlfriend. It gives us more time to chat with friends, it doesn't distract us from our top priority mission which is studying, it removes a whole lot probability of problems which may arise by having one, or maybe like me, it makes me appreciate my future wife even more. I need someone who put being with me in her priority, so the one thing I should never do is to hurt her intentionally(regardless of the traits or qualities that she has). Especially, comparing her with another woman, particularly, a woman from my past, or even worse(imaginary women, or pixelated women, if you know what I mean). Something I tried to do endlessly. So, consciously choosing to be single all this time is my way of proving that I'm trying not to have someone whom I can compare her to. I, for once, ever get close to someone -- kinda obsessed, actually. But then after a while, something like the Indonesian paraphrase "bertepuk sebelah tangan" thing happened, I felt really really down. From that moment on, I hoped to myself that I will not get myself attached to any girl, any woman I know, ever again. Not one except for my wife :"

Waa waa, why am I telling all those stories again here? Well, let's get back to the point.

       So, what I'm trying to say here is that I often encounter talks about marriage here with my friends. I think lots of them think of marriage as something which is pleasing. It brings us smile and laughter when we talk about it. You know, in my own views, of course it's logical for us to think of it that way(re : pleasing) because it's like we've been abstaining from having someone of the opposite gender to get close to us. Pretty much analogous to fasting, in some way, and the marriage itself is like the end of our fasting. That's why it sounds pleasing to us. Finally, we've someone beautiful and caring by our side. Indeed, it rings very beautiful in the ears. Unfortunately, it seems like very little people talk about the opposite(or maybe the end) of marriage, divorce.

       The first time I ever had a talk about divorce is when I'm at my 10th grade in my sociology class. I still remember my teacher's name, she's the very famous teacher who gives quiz in which no one can get the score of over 40/100. I remembered that at first, she talked about recent social problems in Indonesian culture. Near the end of the class, the topic somehow turned into divorce. At the beginning of the discussion I was on the side of the guys who thinks that divorce is okay if the condition seems inevitable. I forgot about most of the discussion, but I did remember about the end of the discussion, the message my teacher tried to send to us clearly : "Divorce, at any condition, is never a good thing." That's the one thing that I still remembered up till now. I was trying pretty hard to understand what that means, but as time passes I think I've come to understand more about what she was trying to convey.

"Divorce is never good for the children."
"Divorce is one very egoistic decision parent can make about their family."
"Divorce is not the solution, it's just two people running away from the problems that they have made."

       So, rethinking about divorce, I now started thinking about what kind of a husband I will be in the future. Am I going to change so much? Because I've seen in many stories which is about people going through their dark times, they changed dramatically in their 30s or 40s. It may well be caused by internal factors like faith, depression, or even some kinda childhood things that many people don't bother at all, although actually it matters a lot. Or maybe, external factors, maybe I got kicked out of the company I worked in, or I got fast and quick promotions many times, or maybe I got strange friends which succeed in changing me, or anything. Anything that may change my personality. Well, no one knows about the future. No one knows whether they will always be husband and wife, or become an ex-husband and ex-wife after some time.

------------ Kamu tahu kesimpulannya? Aku khawatir. Because I've seen it happening :(

Notes : So, maybe you think you wanna be someone's partner in the near future because of what you've seen in her/him now, but are you ready for that change? Are you ready?