When you sign a contract, whether to buy a house or a car or an item on hire purchase there are certain things both parties agree to do. Once the contract is signed, both parties are required buy law to adhere to it. When we get married we also sign a contract. We contract to love, honor and cherish, or obey, depending on the version of your marriage service.
We contract that we will keep on loving each other and being committed to each other for better ‘for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health,’ till death parts us. Note, it doesn’t say till we change our minds or decide we’ve had enough or it gets too hard. Sadly, some people seem to conveniently forget or ignore what they have contracted to do.
Recently I was talking to someone who, along with her husband, has moved house. They were planning on enjoying retirement life living on the coast. Sadly it has not turned out as either of them expected. Her husband has become very sick. She has become his full time carer. But she said with a shrug, ‘That’s just the way it is.’
It’s not what she was expecting, but it is what she contracted for. She contracted for better or worse, in sickness and in health.
Think of it like the Billy Joel song ‘Scenes from an Italian Resturant,’ which talks about taking not just the good times but the bad times and loving all the time. That means not just when everything is going smoothly and life is good, but remembering what you contracted for. No, it’s not always easy. Life doesn’t hold out any guarantees that it will all be smooth sailing. There will be so rough seas sometimes. We just have to weather them.
When people aren’t well, they can be hard to get along with, depressed, irritable, and picky. I’ve no doubt most of us can be like that when we’re not well or times are tough. That’s when we need to cling more tightly to each other and remember what we contracted for.
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