Love and Marriage

Love and marriage
Love and marriage
They go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you brother
You can't have one without the other

Love and marriage
Love and marriage
It's an institute you can't disparage
Ask the local gentry
And they will say it's elementary

Try, try, try to separate them
It's an illusion
Try, try, try and you will only come
To this conclusion

Love and marriage
Love and marriage
They go together like a horse and carriage
Dad was told by mother
You can't have one, you can't have none
You can't have one without the other

No Sir!

*****

Doesn't sound like the lyrics of a song?

I didn't think it did, but I loved the song since I first heard it. Not just because of the happy tune, but because of the words that advocate my beliefs.

Serenaded to by Ol' Blue Eyes, even over a CD player in the car along the highway, you can't help but get mesmerized by his deep smooth voice and believe that what he sings of does come true. Love and marriage... it's a possibility. I so love Sinatra.

But that was 1955.

Probably an era when people believed in love, they worked toward marriage and staying together, and infidelity and promiscuity were probably a much bigger taboo.

Sometimes I think I rightfully belong to the past. I don't belong here, not in this decade, not in this modern times, not in this fucked-up society, maybe not even in this world of fools, Don Juans, Elizabeth Taylors, broken marriages, free-lovers and fuck-buddies.

Maybe I'll be slammed by proponents of 'modern love' or 'modern living', for believing wholeheartedly in love and marriage, but that was truly what I believed in. Maybe I still do believe in it, but my confidence has been shaken badly.

Maybe it still holds true. But for it to happen, you probably need two same persons who believe in the same truth... and stand steadfastly by it.

When one believes, but the other doesn't, one gets crushed while the other simply moves on.

I sure know this for myself.

But how often in the world now would you get two such same persons to cross paths and fall in love?

Hardly, to the point of impossible. Just when you get so close to finding the one, the one whom you thought believed in the same kind of love and marriage as you, counting your blessings for having found true meaning in life, you lose it and realize it's just an illusion. A cruel joke played on you for the longest time.

The path crossed was a one-way wrong turn. We coudn't turn back, and we could only wish we hadn't taken the turn together in the first place.

I still believe in love and marriage - but I have given up on it. You can never trust anyone else in this world to entrust your whole life to. I am giving up the search. I don't have another six years of my life to give away for possibly nothing. I am going to save my love for myself and my dogs. I don't think I'll ever be lucky this life. I'll put my money on the next one.


Best friend Lyn and I had this conversation sometime two years back. She was getting pre-marital jitters, and we were talking about our loves, our men, and the same kind of trust we would give our men.

Two years ago. I was still full of love, full of trust, full of faith then.

She feared of an imaginery future when she would be stuck at home with the kids, while her husband would be out entertaining clients in clubs and pubs. She feared unnecessarily then of the day when she would become a frumpy mother and her husband would have dalliances behind her back.

I reassured her then. I promised I would always be there for her - I'd be the nicest 'Auntie' her kids would ever know. I still do, and I still will.

And I spoke proudly of my faith in my man then. I proclaimed he would never stray. He might seem mischievous but I knew he believed in us and he loved me too much to think of anything else that might jeopardize our future.

I then declared I loved him so much I was willing to give my all into this - to take a risk by investing my everything. Nothing could happen otherwise, anyway. I thought I was sure.

I had said too, that should my trust be betrayed, I would never look for love again. Should this fail, I knew I would be too heartbroken, too crushed to give love another chance.

If I were ever to lose him, I would channel all my energies into other passions of my life. I knew even then that I would have nothing left - no faith, no hope, no time, no energy - to try again.


Self-prophecies do come true, some say, So you should never try to predict your own life. Some things happen because you believe into them too much - subconsciously.

I am not superstitious, and I don't believe in that.

I only believe in myself and in God.


And speaking of prophecies, I once had a couple of 'fortune-telling' advice rendered when I wasn't even seeking it.

A friend, who claimed to know some fortune-telling, tried to work his prowess on me, took my palm and said, "You will have a hard life in your late twenties." Just like that.

I didn't actually believe, and I didn't take any 'precautionary' measures against his foresight.

But now, everything seems to have proven him right.

We were always in financial deficits, and we always barely had enough to make it through the month. The car would give us problems, the dogs would fall sick, there would be problems at home. Anything, everything that would suck our money away. I was so looking forward to the days when we would have a dual-income life, just so we could start saving for our own future.

And now. Now I am left in this state.

Old Mr Liu, our mentor in our team, had something else to offer me as well.

He's a nice old man, in his seventies. Used to broil us herbal soup to 'mend our legs' after trainings every Sunday at the school where he used to live. But ever since an excessive alcohol consumption messed up his poor old judgement, we always thought he tended to babble too much nonsense that perhaps we shouldn't take heed of.

So once, he looked at me - I don't think he looked at my palm, just my face, or maybe it was palm-reading, I can't remember.

And he said something I would've rather not known: "You will have a major illness in your forties." Just like that.

Great. No indication of the kind of illness, how major it would be, or if I would die from it.

Maybe he is going to be right as well.

Maybe that's why God is taking my precious one away from me now. Because I am not meant to have a future with him anyway. Maybe I am meant to die young.

I don't know.

I still don't believe in superstition nor in fortune-telling.

Neither do I believe in a lot of things in life now.


I wonder how God must be feeling now.

Why all his lamb on earth are going astray and being tempted by the wolves (all in sheep's clothing, possibly).

Why no one believes in his message about love and marriage now.

Why we have all allowed the devil to put an evil foot in our relationships now.

Last year, I remember I had five or maybe more weddings to attend to. Friends were getting married, friends getting attached, no one was breaking up.

This year, I had barely more than two wedding invites, and I have seen more break-ups than hitch-ups. Marriages, long-term relationships - everyone seems to have succumbed to temptation and no one seems to have faith anymore.

I think I know how God is feeling. Maybe sad, but still faithful in us.

Sorry God - I think I'm going to give up. I'll channel the love elsewhere more worthy in my life.

And remember, I'm all for you to bring home anytime.