DO WE MARRY THE PERSON WE LOVE? ( "The Family Crucible"" - Augustus Y. Napier Ph.D, with Carl Whitaker, MD.)
Nineteen years after my 30-year marriage broke down, I still wonder why I chose a spouse with whom I have very little in common. While the marriage lasted many years, our time together was not a time of love and companionship; on the contrary, ours were times of coldness and distance. If we lasted 30 years together it was because our common concern was that our only son could grow up with the both of us. One day I read in The Family Crucible a phrase I never forgot: "We do not marry the person we love but the person we need". If this is true, the question for me is then what did I need from the man I married that made me choose him? Since my love for my chosen one lasted very little, it is obvious that these words were telling me something important. If I analyze the personality of my ex-husband, he is a man focused on his work and who always dreamed of bigger horizons. He had a lot of plans, but I guess that the idea of going alone didn't convince him. As for me, when ...