Quoting Sage:Brian -- Honestly? I see what you mean and I still disagree
The difference between your loan example and the conversation with your w. about your m. is that the LOAN is entirely within one persons control to pay back or not pay back. Your w. CAN'T make the m. work on her own. She really can't. I don't know....I may completely wrong about her intent, too, but I don't think it's weak or ineffective or whatever for her to have used the word "try". I'm "trying" to make MY m. work...I'm NOT making it work. Really.
Before conceeding that you make a strong argument, let me take one more crack here. When getting married, we make vows, of faithfulness, love, trust, "for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health...so long as we both shall live". It's not a commitment to TRY (i.e., a commitment of attitude), it's a commitment to DOING (i.e., a commitment of action, a commitment of being). No, my W can't make the M work on her own (although, come to think of it, from my perspective, she holds a tremendous amount of power in making it happen), but if her attitude is one of simply "trying", that carries with it an escape clause ("hey, I tried").
Have you ever known someone who got married thinking of it as a trial marriage? I have. Their thinking is, we'll try it out, and if it doesn't work, we'll get a D. It's a strange and uncommitted "commitment", isn't it?
All of that said, you make good points, and I certainly shouldn't be overanalyzing every damn word (like I just did).
On a separate but related topic, I've been feeling like I'd really like to ask my W if we could renew our vows. I want to do that for several reasons. First, in an effort to re-establish them and give them meaning again. The vows as they stand currently (broken) don't really mean anything now. If I break them, well, I'm just paying her back. If she breaks them, well, that's just continuing what's already happened. It's almost like I feel D'd already. In a legal (or perhaps religious) sense, the contract, once broken, is null and void. I feel the need to re-establish the contract. Second, I want to somehow try to regain a sense of the specialness (for lack of a better word) of our M that was completely wiped away by the A. Maybe "specialness" is a lost cause, and can never be had again. I don't know. Have you (or anybody else) had your vows renewed, or thought about it?
In any case, I don't think I would bring up the subject yet. We're probably not ready for it. But it's been on my mind a lot lately and I'd like to get your opinion.
