婚姻，真的懂了吗？

“Yes, I do”. Hearing my friend’s wedding vows, I broke down in happy tears for her.

R and I have been friends for twenty years. We met and got to know each other for nine months, then we travelled to different cities and countries. Prior to her wedding, we only met in person twice. Other times, we touch base once in a while via emails or social networks. In the past twenty years, we have made different decisions. We lived in different cities, faced different challenges, had different careers and made different friends. How much has been changed in two decades? The answer is numerous. But our friendship never faded. I felt that the friendship is so strong when catching a flight to her wedding in the dawn; I felt that the friendship is so strong when breaking down in happy tears seeing her getting re-married.

Accompanying me to the wedding is friend M who also became a friend twenty years ago. We sat beside each other on the flight and we shared a hotel room. In the two days and one night, we talked, talked and talked. We talked about our families, our dreams, our careers and about everything and anything that can not be shared with others. We also had sincere and enjoyable discussions on religions although we are holding totally opposite views. The excitement, pleasure and satisfaction that we enjoyed did not seem less than what my friend R would get on her honeymoon. 

In the past twenty years, our friendship trees have not only survived but grew taller and stronger. On the contrary, R's first marriage deceased and the second was just born; M's marriage experienced challenges and has just survived. My marriage remained fairly stable after some ups and downs. This is a brief summary of four marriages and two friendships.

This trip to my friend's wedding motivated me to clear some questions off my to-think list. What are the major differences between friendship and marriage? Which one is stronger? Which should be the bread and butter? Why and how? 

Marriage is regulated by law, friendship is not; Marriage is tasked with procreation, friendship is not; Marriage is a long term (life-time in certain cultures) commitment, friendship is not; Marriage is celebrated with rings, vows, and anniversaries, friendship is not.

Is marriage more important than friendship? It seems so. Is a marriage stronger than a friendship? It is supposed to be. If marriage is so important and strong, why do many choose to be single? Why is marriage not mandatory in one's life? I have friends who have never been married and who enjoy their lives just as much as(if not better than) I do. Those friends have one thing in common: they all have very well cared and maintained friendships. It seems friendship is what they cannot live without. Personally, I admit that it is almost impossible to enjoy a life in the absence of friendships.  

By far, the conclusion is that marriage is important but not mandatory in one's life. This is shocking and very interesting. Why? Because Mr. Right or Mrs. Right is so hard to find? Or because marriage can be broken up easily?  Then why?

To begin with, I would think about how marriage and friendship happen in one's life. It is reported that an individual comes across about 29,000 others in their entire life. Among the 29,000 strangers, there are dozens of people with whom we develop various types of relationships. Marriage and friendship are two of these many relationships establish at various stages of life. They are the results of a series of intentional incidents or random encounters. To maintain each and every type of relationship, there are some common fundamental requirements. For example, marriage and friendship are both born with confidence(trust), care and communication, In addition to these, marriage also requires loyalty (monogamy marriage), physical intimacy (for precreation), legal agreement and long term commitment. Furthermore, it is said a marriage is not a one-on-one relationship, but a relationship among three families: the married couple, her family and his family. It seems a marriage requires greatly more than a friendship does. Could it be the more regulations, the more problems? Or the more complex a relationship is, the higher possibilities it will break up?  

In each and every relationship, there are hidden roles and responsibilities involved. The order in which one was born in a family definitely affects this person's roles in every relationship. Generally speaking, the first child tends to take the leader role in most occasions, while the youngest children are comfortable with being taken care of. However, case by case, we do switch our roles in order to establish and maintain a desired relationship. In a marriage, the fight for power starts at the early stage and it could be ongoing; however, in a friendship, cooperation and compromisation may not make a fatal impact on the relationship.

In a friendship, there is no obligation and no commitment. Friends are in and out of our lives. We appreciate each friend's accompany on our ride of the life train. Time filters out the true friends who then become family members for a life time. Although not connected by blood or marriage, our true friends are connected with us by heart and by spirit tightly and closely. A friend can be our playmate, travel mate, chat mate, laugh mate, and so on. It seems, other than love mate, a friend can play almost every and each role in our lives. All is voluntary-based. We keep each other warm; we care if they are safe and happy; we offer help before they ask. 

In a marriage, there are obligations, commitments, house chaos, and so on.  Our spouse is the only teammate accompanying us to face the rest of life, which is "enriched" with tons of tiny things. Moreover, our spouse is the one, the only one, the unique one, whom we chose out of the 29,000 others.  Of course, we have high expectations. We expect our spouse to be our lover, soulmate; at the same time, our cook, driver, bread winner, and much more. All is voluntold-based or obligation-based. We keep each other tested and challenged; we care who does more chaos and who does less; we do not offer help even when being requested.

We never expect one friend to play all roles, and we have various types of friends. On the contrary, with only one spouse, we expect the one to play all the roles to suit our needs. It seems if we change the law of monogamy marriage, we can marry many spouses and will live happily ever after. Is this right?

Recently, I heard another statement. The technology nowadays is making communication so convenient that connecting with others has never been this easy. With social networks, many have found their long lost classmates and friends, including their first lover, ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends. I am not sure whether there have been any statistics on new technologies and divorces. It is interesting how these ex-relationships and coming back memories are affecting many unhappy marriages.

Not long ago, a friend shared with me her thoughts on life and marriage. She commented that “Human's life span is getting longer which means a marriage has to last longer too. In cultures where divorce is not encouraged or allowed, an unhappy couple has to live together and tolerate each other so much longer. It is not humanized, so brutal”.  

Certainly, the rate of divorce has been raising due to many factors. Some of the common complaints could be “I no longer love him” “She has changed so much” “He just does not care about me anymore” “I so need someone to please me and calm me down". Each marriage is unique; every divorce is different. But there is one message in common: we are so in dire needs of a right person. At my friend's wedding, she stated she has finally found a right husband who will “serve and lead” her. If “serve” addresses the daily needs, “lead” takes care of the spiritual growth. I would think a marriage is more than good if one of these two missions is accomplished. 

In any relationship, does the pleasure come from the other person or from the relationship itself or from our own feelings? In a marriage, does happiness and satisfaction come from a right lover or from the feeling of love or being loved? I would think that one needs to understand not only the other person but also the relationship itself. In a friendship, the effort that is required to define and care the relationship(like what type of friend? how close? how much involvement?) is just as much as that is required to understand each other. In a marriage, we need to get along with the spouse, and more important, we have to sustain the peace between ourselves and marriage itself. No matter what types of friendships or marriages, the higher the expectation, the deeper the disappointment.

The understanding of marriage is truely another journey, which is ongoing and individualized. To make a long story short: Marriage is not 0.5+0.5=1; Marriage is always 1+1=2. In other words, any attempts to complete oneself by marrying someone will likely turn to be unsuccessful. Any search for a Mr. Right or Ms. Right may be ended with lost in a self-generated maze. If each individual is a puzzle, we are attracted to someone who have the piece(s) that we are missing. But marriage is not for two individuals to share their pieces, rather it is for them to grow their own pieces. As for self-completion, both marriage and friendship can support it but not to fulfill it for us. Growing-up is a long and alone journey. It is also a very fascinating and rewarding adventure. If we still say a marriage is not making our needs met, marriage is innocent. It is not marriage, it is us. Instead of searching for a right lover or soulmate, we simply need to make a "U turn" starting a beautiful drive into our own inner world. 

In conclusion, marriage is an exclusive relationship, while friendship is an inclusive one. Friendships can be established at a very early age (I have a friendship started at age 5);  marriage can be formed at the late teen years or early twenty. Friendship is mandatory for an enjoyable life; Marriage may not be mandatory but may make a life more enjoyable. By saying this, I have no intention to enourge or discourage marriage or divorce. And I am not trying to teach or advise, not at all. I am merely recording this thinking process for a good laugh for me in the future. It is also for a reader like you who has been patiently reading till this far. It is full of my bias. But who can live without bias after all? Even it is possible, is it better? Anyways, my bias are marriage could be the less the happier, while friendship surely is the more the merrier.

As my husband commented, some times he can barely understand my friendships. One time, I was invited to someone's house, and this“someone” is a friend of my friend's friend (we have never met and only had one phone call before the home visit). Of course,  I went to her house and became a friend with my friend's  friend. That was fifteen years ago. Recently, without knowing each other's plan, our paths crossed at a museum in Boston. What a beautiful surprise that brought to life by a friendship!