Urban Thought Collective

I’ve always wondered why marriage is sometimes called an “institution.” Was it because it’s supposed to be strong or confining? Perhaps it depends on how you look at it—I’ll take strong. We’re increasingly hearing about men and woman going mental when finding their marriage is beyond repair, and can’t calmly and rationally process that fact. As a result, we’re seeing more people wanting to personally sign their spouse’s death certificate. In those cases, I guess it’s not too far-fetched to characterize some marriages as institutions—the ones where spouses are confined in marriage by the dangerously mentally ill, who definitely need to be confined themselves.

It’s unfortunate, but some people would prefer to see their ex suffer tremendously, even die, than to live without them. These people, living in their own universe, need regular medication and much prayer, because they go absolutely hog wild, demon-possessed, crazy at the thought of their spouse divorcing them and moving on.
Look at what happened to Jennifer Hudson’s family. Three people died at the maniacal hands (allegedly) of her ex-brother-in-law (who looked like a real lunatic in his mug shot), because her sister was seeing someone else. As a result, Jennifer and her sister tragically lost three loved ones.

Then there’s the horrible story in the news just before Christmas, where on the night before, a man killed 10 people including friends, relatives, his ex-wife and her parents at a holiday gathering, because their divorce settlement was not to his liking. I don’t see how much more it could have gone in his favor. She was giving him the house and was only asking for the dog and $10,000, which the judge said he could pay on a schedule. The judge even waived the payments when he lost his job, but that just wasn’t good enough. He wanted his wife and everyone who ever loved her dead, including himself.

Then there’s this most recent and I’ve got to admit, kind of funny story, where a surgeon in New York who gave his ailing wife his kidney, wants the kidney back (or its supposed financial equivalent—about $1.5 million) in the divorce, because she had been cheating. Is it me? Or is he saying he wanted her to pay dearly for that, either dead or alive?

How crazy is that? By letting his rage overrule his common sense, he now looks ridiculous and heartless. His selflessness of giving her his kidney to save her life is now diminished and people are empathizing with her for having married a nut job.

There are too many of these marriages gone wrong, where ex-husbands and ex- wives try to take the other down if not underground, in divorce. They totally forget they once loved each other and the gloves come on and the shovels come out.

Often dangerous divorces like these are found mostly in marriages where there are substantial amounts of money to be gained or lost. Sometimes money nor marriage has anything to do with those trying to hasten the “till death do us part,” aspect of those vows–but being crazy and vengeful does. I’ll never forget when as a teen growing up in Harlem, I saw a crowd of people standing around my building looking up in horror, as children were being thrown out of a window from the 14th floor of our 18 floor building. I knew the kids whose mother was living with her boyfriend. The four children were adorable, the oldest about eight years-old.

The children’s mother made the mistake one day of leaving them home with her long time boyfriend, to go to the store after they’d had a fight. Whatever they fought about, he was so angry he killed her kids and their cute little dog. I saw them all fall from the sky, one by one. The people in the building were so angry they came after him, but he jumped to his death. That tragedy will be etched in my memory forever. As you can imagine, the mother completely lost her mind after that and was institutionalized.

These unfortunate incidents are numbered among the many testaments to Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” than there should be. Yet, love and commitment (or the lack there of) has everything to do with it—the love of God, yourself and others.

There is absolutely no doubt that marriage has incredible challenges and can make you crazy. But wanting to kill your spouse, even out of momentary anger and actually making sure of it (there is a difference), is wrong on too many levels. Unless it’s self defense there’s no justification for it, and maybe not even then. Unfortunately for too many, passionate love can turn into passionate hate very quickly—it’s a very thin line.

For those people, their understanding of the vows “Till death do us part,” is obviously misunderstood by them to literally mean, “If I don’t love you anymore or you don’t love me anymore, you’re not fit to live.”

But for those couples who understand God’s intent and work hard to follow his framework of marriage, those words mean pledging their love to each other for life, until one of them dies–preferably of natural causes after getting very old, having shared a great life together.

At least, that’s what my husband and I are working towards and hoping for, as well as millions of other couples like us, I’m sure. Although inevitable, we don’t want to see death or the changes of old age come too soon for either of us, because life is already too fleeting and we’ve still got lots of living to do.

Norma Stanley is President/CEO of NFS Communications and Publishing, a multicultural marketing firm specializing in the African American and Disability communities. She is also the mother of a special needs child, and author of “The Elected Lady—Finding Victory in the Challenge,” an inspirational book for and about mothers of special needs children. Married to her high school sweetheart, they have weathered nearly 25 years of marriage, which has seen mostly bright and sunny days, with more than a few stormy rain clouds thrown in for good measure. Stanley’s thoughts on love and marriage are exclusive to www.urbanthoughtcollective.com.