The last standing traditional institution

I asked some of my best friends on what they think about marriage. The people I asked were: a gay man, a gay woman, a cocaine addict, a nerd, a pot-head, an illegal alien, a hippie, a cheater and an atheist. Sure some of them had more than one of these characteristics, but it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters was that the result was: 100% of them take marriage very seriously to my absolute surprise. They find that marriage should be based on the purest love and that one must try to be happy forever in a marriage.

You can call me conservative but I thought that this concept of marriage only existed amongst radical Christians and ugly and fat people.

Then something occurred to me. Is that the origin of the unhappiness of many couples? One can think like this: I am married and this person here beside me really bothers me. I do not know if I love this person anymore. Actually I am not even sure it was love that brought us here. Perhaps it was only passion or maybe I’ve just been horny for an extensive period of time. However now I cannot leave this relationship because I built a psychological prison around me. After all I’ve always believed that marriage should be forever.

How can someone be happy like this?

Obviously some of the people who answered the poll are single. Therefore they cannot be completely happy yet. It will only be possible when they find the person who they will marry, even though they may then paradoxically find bitterness in their marriages till the day they die.

PS. I also interviewed some happy people, both married and single people, but they did not believe in the institution of marriage therefore they had not entered this research.