Tomorrow, Oct. 31, Fathers for Good launches its November topic, chosen by online voters who visited our website. Garnering more than 44 percent of the votes was "For Better or For Worse."
Each of us has an idea what this marriage promise has meant in our own lives, even before we got married ourselves. I am speaking about the "better or worse" we experienced in our parents' marriage. Personally, I can remember some very good times and some not so good times; some memorable joys and some eminently forgettable troubles.
But in our very middle class family in a decidedly middle class enclave of busy midtown Manhattan (this was in the 1960s, when there were still such enclaves in New York City), there was never any thought of break-up, let alone divorce. I knew hundreds of kids in the neighborhood Catholic school and only one of them came from a divorced family.
My parents loved one another, they worked through their problems and stayed together. Now well into their senior years, alone together in an apartment, they are closer perhaps than they have ever been in their lives. The commitment they lived "for better, for worse" has a profound effect on my attitude and commitment to my own marriage.
What a secure comfort it is to know that no matter what my wife and I face, we are in it together, forever. We can even "risk" disagreements and an argument or two, to air out our differences and rub our rough edges, because we know that these are bumps along the road, never the end.
If I could give a word of advice to enagaged or newly married couples, it would be this: Love is in the will. Love is a firm commitment and a settled state of mind. Love is to think, speak and act always for the good of the beloved. And to say "I'm sorry" whenever you don't.