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Book Excerpt from Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your Truth and Your Life by Barbara Rose
Book Excerpt from
Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your Truth and Your Life
By Barbara Rose
Let me address this issue of eternity, this promise
many couples demand of each other and recite in standard wedding vows. Taken literally, this promise is broken more than it
is kept. But “Till death do us part” can be interpreted differently.
In this phrase, “death” does not need to mean the end of physical life. It can mean the end of the couple’s purpose for being together; once the purpose is fulfilled, the union no longer needs to continue. Now that I have just shocked and mortified the majority of the human race, please allow me to explain further so you can have a clearer and deeper understanding. When two people meet and grow in love, the purpose of their meeting is to help each other in a certain area, on a certain level of their lives. Now, I shall go into this in more detail in Chapter 4, Soul Mates. But here, I am not speaking of soul mates; I am speaking of those couples who find themselves in divorce court even though they once promised to be together for the remainder of their lives. Of course there is nothing wrong with traditional marriage. It is a lovely concept. With all of the single parents in society today, however, this idea of “till death do us part” needs clarification. How could you possibly promise something about a time that is decades away? How could you possibly be so sure that you and your partner will continue to grow together for the remainder of your lives and not grow apart? Why would you promise something you might not be able to fulfill? Two people meet for a particular reason, a reason related to emotional growth or lessons to be learned to foster that growth so that they can become all they are meant to be, become who they really are, as opposed to their false perceptions of self. Think about your own relationships or marriages. Was there one in which you felt so in love at first? And did you discover after a while that that particular partner had provided you with an opportunity for personal growth - an opportunity to awaken those aspects that had been dormant within you? And after you grew, did you still want that same person to remain as your partner? Judging from the statistics on divorce in this country, my guess is that about half of the people reading this would answer “no.” Someone entered your life; as a result of that relationship, you grew to be more of who you really are. When the relationship fulfilled its purpose, you no longer felt the need to remain together, so you went your separate ways. But in many cases, two people are meant to share the remainder of their lives together; those are the couples who are still happily married decades later, and this is perfectly fine as well. So, it is
not that marriage is right or wrong, good or bad. It is a wonderful thing to be with one person for as long as the relationship
is of mutual benefit, to help each other grow, to explore life, to engage your minds in new areas. But to remain together
because of some recited obligation, long after you do not fit into each other’s life, long after you have stopped growing
and have no common purpose - that is the same as signing a contract with an employer stating, “I will work here, in
this job, until death do us part. And no matter how my interests or life goals change, no matter how dissatisfied I am with
this job, no matter how many other areas of my life I could fulfill if I were to have a different job, I will still stay with
you as long as I live.” © Copyright by Barbara Rose, All Rights
Reserved. Chapter Excerpt from Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your
Truth and Your Life By Barbara Rose Published by The Rose Group (April 2003) ISBN: 097414570X
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