I love that the Conservatives have put marriage and the state of our society up for debate as it gets people thinking about relationship. Biased, me? Oh, most definitely!
The idea of government money rewarding people for ‘being married’ misses the point for me. I don’t hear any understanding or plans to help people actually ‘be married’ and happy enough in relationship to stay married! Its like strapping a cart onto the horse and watching it gallop off without thinking or explaining anything about horses.
Yes... I guess you could say relationships are like a powerful horse that we’re not bought up to understand or know how to ride (in all senses of the word!). Our parents may have managed to stay on together by putting the horse in blinkers, or perhaps they fell off at the first hurdle, or after years of hanging on. Some may have shown amazing feats of dressage in public, but with a private wild stallion. A few will have learned to ride the horse together, and shown the way.
The hard part is that life has changed and we’ve lost an option. We no longer want to blinker the horse, as we want the excitement and passion to stay alive. We expect to be able to master relationship, yet, most of us don’t know how to ride well, let alone stay on, as we date, live together, perhaps marry, have children or not, work, retire.
I reckon its time for riding lessons... (but I dread the politians getting involved in them!)
