# Until Death Do Us Part



## Finwe (Nov 5, 2015)

How serious is this vow? 

Most marriages included this in their vows, but in reality, it is until financial, children, religion, in-laws, sex, or sadly, abuse, will dissolve the marriage.

I find it curious that most of us say the vow, but over 50% break it, and no one bats an eye.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Finwe said:


> How serious is this vow?
> 
> Most marriages included this in their vows, but in reality, it is until financial, children, religion, in-laws, sex, or sadly, abuse, will dissolve the marriage.
> 
> I find it curious that most of us say the vow, but over 50% break it, and no one bats an eye.


That's typically not the only vow exchanged during your typical (Western) wedding ceremony.


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## Finwe (Nov 5, 2015)

The top on my google search for marriage vow - Protestant

"I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you."

Richer/poorer, sick/healthy, love, and death. 

Perhaps the vows should change to:

"...to have and to hold, from this day forward, until financial security ends, or health runs out, to love or tolerate, till death or impending crisis do us part, ..."


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## Mr. Nail (Apr 26, 2011)

At least there is that one escape clause.
Just kidding.
My wedding didn't include that phrase at all. There has been quite a bit of discussion of a limited term contract marriage. I'm pretty sure that if the contract read. "You two agree to build a life together until one of you gets bored or annoyed then the first one to file gets all the goodies." No one would sign up for it at all. In fact many do see it that way and do not marry for that very reason. Men Going Their Own Way. 
Personally I see marriage as more of a religious commitment than as a legal status, but my religion does encourage legal and lawful marriage.


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Finwe said:


> Perhaps the vows should change to:
> 
> "...to have and to hold, from this day forward, until financial security ends, or health runs out, to love or tolerate, till death or impending crisis do us part, ..."


I heard a story of a young married couple that the wife got a strange infection surrounding her spinal cord in her neck and within a week she was completely paralyzed. The husband promptly divorced the wife because of this medical situation and returned her to her parents so that she could be cared for by them.

In contrast to that I often hear stories of couples that have lived a long life together and help care for each other as they go through the "end of life" stages of health. While this is often admired by society, the caregiver in the relationship is often left to die alone and completely drained of all financial resources due to rising healthcare costs. 










The moral of this is to be nice and kind to your children as well as your daughter/son in law and hope that they have a stable enough marriage to be there for you when you get old and need them!

Regards, 
Badsanta


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

Once upon a time a man's word was his bond and a woman's dedication was her virtue. Once upon a time...


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## Cooper (Apr 18, 2008)

Well if you have kids that vow kind of sticks, even after divorce. You may never see the ex or talk with the ex but when kids are involved the ex will always be that tiny bit of static in the background that you can't quite tune out. 

Personally I've come to think marriage licenses should be renewed every few years, that way when you realize you got a junker you just scrap it and find a new one. Forget about that "till death" crap. (I'm only half kidding)


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

NoChoice said:


> *Once upon a time *a man's word was his bond and a woman's dedication was her virtue. Once upon a time...


So begins all fairy tales ...


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## Finwe (Nov 5, 2015)

If our society was serious, we'd allow a person to get re-married only in the event of death. If you make a poor choice, you can divorce, but you can no longer get married again.


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## Betrayedone (Jan 1, 2014)

I have no further use for the institution of marriage because the vows are just hollow words and even the people you would think would NEVER violate them, do......Often without batting an eyelash. I regularly advise my older kids to bypass marriage and just be with whoever is important enough in their lives for as long as it suits them both. Could be forever, probably not and the split will be cleaner and hopefully less painful.


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

Interestingly, my now-ex-husband absolutely intended to honor that portion of his vows. He fully expected and was totally committed to remaining married to me for his entire lifetime. He was loyal. He was never going to leave me. He's still bitter about me throwing away our marriage and destroying our family. Because marriage is forever. And I'm the bad guy because I filed for divorce. 

Now, I only filed after discovering he'd been serially cheating for the entirety of our 15 year marriage - and even well before it. And he admitted he had no intention of really stopping that behavior. But he was never going to _leave_ me. All the "other stuff" was just none of my business. Because _that's_ what was important - staying married. Apparently that whole fidelity thing is more in the way of a suggestion.

:slap:


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I take my marriage vows very seriously.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

Finwe said:


> If our society was serious, we'd allow a person to get re-married only in the event of death. If you make a poor choice, you can divorce, but you can no longer get married again.


So if our spouse broke their vows (note the plural there), we are not permitted to divorce? If our spouse initiates the divorce we are not allowed to remarry?

Marriage is a contract. People violate contracts sometimes. When they do, the other person has the moral and legal right to void the contract. A person should not be compelled to abide by the terms of a contract when the other person is choosing not to abide by their side of the deal.

Our wedding vows were similar to the one quoted above, something like "From this day forward, to have and to hold, to Love, Honor, and Cherish, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, Forsaking all others, 'til death do us part". Let's look at those multiple vows:

1) To Have and to Hold: It means to have sex and to physically comfort. It means to emotionally support each other.
2) From this day forward: This means no time-outs, no Hall Pass, no secret "what they don't know won't hurt them" loop hole.
3) To Love, Honor, and Cherish: This requires intention and effort throughout the relationship. Even when romantic love is tough, we must act honorably. We must recognize the other person is valuable to us and so we cherish them.
4) For Better or Worse, in Sickness and in Health: Basically we promise to do the hard work because it isn't going to all be rainbows and unicorns forever.
5) Forsaking all others: No exceptions in there for parents, siblings, ex-lovers, coworkers, neighbors, or even our children. This isn't a promise not to screw others, this is a pledge to put our marriage ahead of all other earthly relationships. 

So we do in fact promise a whole lot more than we are legally married "until death do us part". We promise behaviors and attitudes, but it is upon the condition our spouse reciprocates.


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

Married but Happy said:


> So begins all fairy tales ...


That does seem to be how we now view marriage in particular and life in general. It's all make believe and subject to whim and fancy. Regrettable.


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## Melrose8888 (Jan 1, 2017)

"...All of this I promise you; today, tomorrow and forever"

Pah! What a load of balls. Not even worth the paper it was written on.

My thoughts on marriage are now so ruined, I feel it will be a deal breaker in future relationships.


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## MovingForward (Jan 19, 2017)

Cooper said:


> Well if you have kids that vow kind of sticks, even after divorce. You may never see the ex or talk with the ex but when kids are involved the ex will always be that tiny bit of static in the background that you can't quite tune out.
> 
> *Personally I've come to think marriage licenses should be renewed every few years, that way when you realize you got a junker you just scrap it and find a new one. Forget about that "till death" crap.* (I'm only half kidding)


This is funny but is not actually the worst idea LOL make you think more about where you are heading.

I took my vowels very serious and would have stuck with my wife no matter what but she wanted to bail out without a second though about anything, in hindsight i guess its a good thing I did not waste anymore time with someone who would have left me if anything bad were to ever happen to me.


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## _anonymous_ (Apr 18, 2016)

Marriage is initiated by two people who share a common mindset: we are better off together than separate. Marriage ends when one person comes to believe: I am better off separate than together. 

The vows seem completely irrelevant to this dynamic, although I should say, in my case the vows have led me to a tremendous amount of second thoughts about divorce. I have yet to divorce.

In this, perhaps the vows achieve a good thing. While often not honored or practiced, I contend that the wedding vows can make decent people in unhappy marriages actually stop to ponder the seriousness of their commitment and the consequences of divorcing to everyone involved. 

Considering this, the problem might not be the vows, but perhaps the growing shortage of decent people!


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

Finwe said:


> The top on my google search for marriage vow - Protestant
> 
> "I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you."
> 
> ...


Not bad, I like it!


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

Cooper said:


> Well if you have kids that vow kind of sticks, even after divorce. You may never see the ex or talk with the ex but when kids are involved the ex will always be that tiny bit of static in the background that you can't quite tune out.
> 
> Personally I've come to think marriage licenses should be renewed every few years, that way when you realize you got a junker you just scrap it and find a new one. Forget about that "till death" crap. (I'm only half kidding)


...or have a clause in the marriage license after the first year you find out about stuff she was hiding and want to scrap her with no penalty or money owed you should be able to. That certainly would have been helpful to me. I would be happily married to someone else .


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Till death do us part. Hmm. The first time around, love died, so that was good enough for me.

Second marriage, our ONLY vow was to be together "... as long as you both shall LOVE." That captures it all, for us. We've worked at maintaining the love through good times and bad, in sickness and health, and when struggling and wealthy. Those things don't matter if you love each other, so really don't even need mentioning.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

Odo and I each wrote personal vows on small pieces of parchment, which we rolled up and put into a glass vessel we filled with sand and sealed (we did a sand ceremony).

Neither of us saw or read what the other had written, and we didn't recite them out loud to others. We just agreed that whatever we'd written, that we'd keep to those vows. To us, they were pretty much a given and unspoken anyway. The vessel sits on a shelf in the house, and I told Odo that if we ever go through a really rough patch and we need to rediscover our love, that we will break it open and read what we vowed to each other.


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

Satya said:


> Odo and I each wrote personal vows on small pieces of parchment, which we rolled up and put into a glass vessel we filled with sand and sealed (we did a sand ceremony).
> 
> Neither of us saw or read what the other had written, and we didn't recite them out loud to others. We just agreed that whatever we'd written, that we'd keep to those vows. To us, they were pretty much a given and unspoken anyway. The vessel sits on a shelf in the house, and I told Odo that if we ever go through a really rough patch and we need to rediscover our love, that we will break it open and read what we vowed to each other.


If you never go through a rough patch, the you never be able to read them and that would be sad. Do you have a contingency plan where you would read them anyway? I know there would be times where neither of you would want to admit you're going through something serious enough to read them.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

jb02157 said:


> If you never go through a rough patch, the you never be able to read them and that would be sad. Do you have a contingency plan where you would read them anyway? I know there would be times where neither of you would want to admit you're going through something serious enough to read them.


Interesting question and idea. I suppose that for both of us (or at least, for me) we didn't need to say them out loud. They were kind of understood between us since we knew we wanted to be together. We are pretty expressive with one another and we essentially proposed to each other on the 1 year anniversary of the day we had met for our first "date."

Maybe we can agree upon a date to open it together. If not that, then they could remain a mystery...


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

Finwe said:


> How serious is this vow?
> 
> Most marriages included this in their vows, but in reality, it is until financial, children, religion, in-laws, sex, or sadly, abuse, will dissolve the marriage.
> 
> I find it curious that most of us say the vow, but over 50% break it, and no one bats an eye.


*Ain't it absolutely amazing how the script of marital vows have historically gone!

All the way from "Until death do us part," to the ultramodern "Until my panties hit the floor!"

I'd greatly like to think that my RSXW helped write the verbiage for those ultramodern vows!*


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## Thound (Jan 20, 2013)

Next month will 35 years for us. I have not broke my vows yet.


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