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ROMANTIC movies have made us believe that love can be found in the most unlikely places; or that lovers have to contend with some conflict; or that they will eventually find their way to softly-lit, traditionally romantic Paris or New York. As the lovers kiss and melt into each other’s arms, the audience assumes that the two will live happily ever after, get a house surrounded with white picket fences, and have two kids and a dog.
Of course, reality teaches us otherwise. Happily-ever-afters do not always happen, most especially in the place where all these romantic comedies come from. There are the predictable disasters, like Britney Spears’ two ill-fated marriages, and the more surprising dissolutions like the marriages of heartthrobs Tom Cruise and Bradd Pitt. As much as we would want our relationships to work out like they do in the movies, doing so actually entails a lot of responsibility, maturity, and hard work.
In "I’ve Been Dating...Now What?," marriage and family councilor Maribel Sison Dioniso and sexual ethics and marriage professor Mike H. Asis provide information and ask questions that will hopefully help young people find a relationships as close as possible to their Hollywood ideal.
Both Dionisio and Asis have the credentials to share their views on what today’s young people should prepare for if they want to have a stable relationship in the future. Dioniso has 15 years of experience as a marriage counselor for the Reintegration for Care and Wholeness (RCW) Foundation as well as an active member of the Discovery Weekend, a retreat seminar that prepares couples for marriage.
Asis, on the other hand, is also part of Discovery Weekend and specializes in liturgical-sacramental theology and sexual ethics in Ateneo de Manila University. Both are also happily married, with four kids between the two of them.
Both authors feel it is vital that the youth prepare adequately for the lifetime commitment of marriage, noting that preparing for marriage just weeks or months prior to the actual ceremony is too short a time.
"As counselors and as married couples ourselves, we have found that the complex factors for marital success must be discovered and/or nurtured much earlier in a relationship," the two say in the book’s preface. "When it is your future happiness and fulfillment at atake, it is never too early to prepare."
As the book reveals, there are certainly a lot more things a couple has to prepare for more than the wedding gown or the hundreds of people to feed in the reception.
In eight chapters Dionisio and Asis discuss ways on how to find out if you’re marriage material, if you and your partner are marriage material, if what the two of you are experiencing is actually love, premarital sex, the right reasons for marrying, marital myths and what role spirituality plays in a relationship.
MAKING THE CHOICE
The book tells us that the first and most important question one should ask is whether marriage is for them. As anybody who’s seen Sex and the City can attest to, in this day and age one doesn’t have to have a spouse to live a fulfilled life, even if society tells us otherwise.
"You do have a choice," says the two authors. "Despite the conventions and traditions of Philippine society regarding marriage, the decision whether to marry or not, when to marry, and whom to marry ultimately lies with you. It is possible that, for certain reasons, marriage may not be for you."
The next chapters discuss in rather sobering detail those many practical questions that young lovers in the midst of passionate affairs may find totally unromantic. As much as we would like to think that love will make everything alright, things such as past relationships, lifestyle and educational attainment are sure to affect ones married life.
"People think the practical things are not important, but it is often these practical things that break a couple when they get over the feeling of being in love," says Fr. Adolfo N. Dacanay, SJ, JCD, of the AdMU theology department. "People expect to enjoy the kind of life they were accustomed to when they were single, the kind of life that their parents provided for them. It is not the same."
"Allan, my husband, did not like a certain bossy tone his mom used when talking to him, especially when she was asking him to do something," relates Dionisio about the importance of communication and the effect one’s single lifestyle will have in the context of a marriage. "Unfortunately, I had the same tone which I picked up from being the eldest daughter. So, when I would talk in that bossy tone Alan would get irritated at me. After becoming aware of the unfortuinate situation, he had to remember that, when I talk, I am not his mom. But I also had to make an effort to change my tone."
Asis affirms that marriage is not the be-all of a relationship, but rather a new stage requiring a different set of skills.
"Like any other relationship, marriage requires dispositions and skills that will have to be learened through time," he says. "This book strives to teach fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to have a happy and fulfilled family in the future."
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