For a Man and Woman to have a successful marriage, they have to understand what marriage is about and what value it brings.
The problem is, these things are not taught and are not found in most of the world, the example we receive from entertainment and other sources show values that destroy the principles that marriage need to work and to be successful.
Most people are now coming from family structures that have also failed and are of no value as to show them how a marriage works or how to have a marriage that can bring meaning to them and life.
So seeing this thread does not surprise me at all, I can understand your views and if I only had the present views of society to guide me, I likely would be in the same place as you. Because the logical worldly self-centered man in me would never have married.
But I have come from a family that was striving to be just that, a family. I have parents, Grand-parents, uncles, aunts and others, All managing to make marriage work and to manage to raise their children to also understand what family is about and what it takes.
Now much of what helps is that my religion teaches the values that are needed to have a successful, loving home life, and with goals and a vision of where you want your family life to be, if both a man and a woman in the bonds of marriage truly want those, they will likely achieve it.
Marriage for me has been fulfilling, It is the place I have grown the most in my life, it has brought me my greatest joys and some of my most challenging struggles. More than my Military career or my professional career or my coaching of sports over the years.
Marriage is not supposed to make your life bliss, it is not going to be easy. It is to teach you to love others more than yourself, it is to allow you to learn to sacrifice, your time, talents and love to help raise your family so that they also can have success, joy, love and support from such a source.
I am happy, I am successful, I am supported, I am loved, I receive more than I can give. When my children come over to the house with their young families. 11 grandkids all under the age of 9 and they all try to jump on my lap at the same time, there is no other success in the world that matters more to me than that, for they all are the most important thing in my life.
And it does not mean I have lost who I am, no, I did not go out every week–end seeking the things I enjoy in my own life all the time. But I found that enjoying my loves in life mean little until I had the chance to share them with my children and to see them either not enjoy it or for them to also fall in love with it and it to become one of their passions. I think of running the rapids on rivers with my sons, I think of shooting with my one son and having him out perform me. I think of watching my son and daughter take to the stage, to act, sing and perform and to see them enjoy the experience and excel at the moment. I think of my sons on the sports field and seeing them have their moments of success and failure and knowing from my own experiences how much they will mean in their life. I think of them working their way through college and overcoming the challenges it brought and for them learning to have to rely on themselves. I think of them as they struggle to raise their own children and I see the hard days and I am grateful that I can support them and that they have a place they can find help when it seems too hard.
But I have an understanding of how important these relationships are and I also understand, that they are not just for just a few years, that they are of value and will last for all eternity. And so will all the traits that I have gained by being together with them and working together with them for some common goals.
No, marriage is not something to just jump into and if you are not making yourself the type of person that can make marriage work and if you don’t marry someone that also have similar goals, then marriage is not going to be something that you will look at as good.
Married for 33 years presently and until the day I die and with a strong faith that it does not stop even then. So there, one voice that is willing to speak up for what marriage means.