As most of you know, we flew back to Phoenix to attend and participate in my sister’s wedding. After several years of searching and sampling, my sister found the man for her. He’s a great guy, a mediocre fantasy football player, and a gentleman. We welcome him to the family with open arms.
We spent much of our trip to Phoenix visiting with family and friends who arrived solely for the wedding. My daughter (flower girl) and myself (reader) also participated in the ceremony, so we were busy with rehearsals and pictures and dress fittings (my daughter) throughout the first week.
The wedding was very well thought out and one of the more inclusive weddings I’ve ever been to. My mother performed the ceremony and several members of both the bride’s and groom’s families participated in the wedding. It was very obvious to me that this is a couple that has a tremendous support system to help keep their marriage successful through the years.
Unfortunately, my wife and son both missed the ceremony. My son decided that sitting on a chair in the hot October sun in Arizona watching people in funny clothes walk up an aisle was not his idea of fun. He pitched a screaming fit to end all screaming fits a few seconds into the ceremony and my wife had to vacate the premises or bear the wrath of glaring eyes. She was wise enough to return when the alcohol started flowing.
I received many compliments for my speech, and I thank everyone for the kind words. It was very important to me that my speech help make my sister’s wedding a memorable event, and I feel that it did. For those of you interested, here is what the speech ‘should’ have been, including the last minute edits I had to make based on the direction from my wife.
When Erica asked me to speak at her wedding, I was caught off guard. It was an unexpected honor and a little surprising. I probably shouldn’t have been – we have a very good relationship. But I was surprised because I have thirty years of stories I've been waiting to share with the right audience. When I remembered that, surprise became excitement.
Erica and I never really experienced what people call "sibling rivalry". Our relationship growing up was more like....sibling war. So when she gave me this platform, I sat at my computer and wrote and wrote and wrote. I tried to recapture every major moment, every key event I could think of over the last thirty years. It flowed from my memories like water from a tap. And it's all right here.
Once I had written it all down, I practiced. And I practiced. I performed my speech in front of a mirror. I called a meeting at work and made my staff and colleagues listen. I asked everyone for feedback. I wanted my speech to be perfect on her big day. And it is. It’s tremendous – funny, poignant, didactic, memorable.
Yesterday, I gave the speech to my wife for the first time. She sat silently and listened. When I was finished, she had that look that every married man has received at some point. I asked: “what’s wrong”.
She said “You know this is her wedding day, right?”
“Yes”.
“And that you are supposed to be nice?”
(Throw speech over shoulder.) So now I have to wing it.
I remember when Erica told me she was engaged to be married. I had one thought: FINALLY
She searched a long time to find someone who could live up to her high standards. For years, whenever she introduced us to the guy she was dating I felt like I was trapped in a Forrest Gump movie, I just never knew what I was going to get.
Then she met Jon. My family was preparing to move to Indonesia at the time so all I remember from the early days of their dating was how excited she was. She loved talking about him, and it showed. I remember how quickly she realized he was: The One. He was the man she had waded in hip boots through the dating cesspool to find. Jon was a man she could commit to.
And that’s a big deal, deciding on your spouse. There is no decision in one’s life more important than who you pick as a spouse. Not the college you go to, not the career you pursue, not even the moral code you choose to follow.
The relationships we have do more for our quality of life, our happiness, and our longevity than anything else. People with a strong support network are healthier, happier, and recover more quickly from serious illness. And no relationship - not with our friends, our siblings, or even our parents - is more important than the one with our spouse. To illustrate what I mean: if you’re a man, statistics show being married adds five years to our life....it may feel like fifteen, but it adds five.
So if marriage is so important, why is the divorce rate so high? If it has so much going for it, why are there affairs? We have people fighting for the opportunity to be married, yet we refer to our spouses as “the ball and chain”? I've even heard it said that while "I am" is the shortest sentence in the English language, "I do" is surely the longest.
If marriage is so important, if it increases our happiness and fosters longevity, why are so many people so down on it?
Because too many people misunderstand love. Too many people think love, is a noun. They think it is an emotion, something you can touch and feel and that, when pure, isn’t fleeting. They mistake love for that excitement you feel in your stomach when you are first attracted to someone. The sensation that feels like all the nervous butterflies are flying in alignment. That sensation isn’t love – it’s dopamine. It’s a hormone our bodies evolved so when we encounter an eligible mate we’re immediately interested. It fostered species continuation.
But that’s not love. Love is not a noun. Love is a verb. It's active. It's all the activities you do every day to show how much you care. It's sitting at the breakfast table on a Sunday morning sipping coffee and planning your week. It's the trips you endure to your in-laws for Thanksgiving when you'd rather be watching football or shopping at the Black Friday sales. It's all those passionate nights, and days, and mornings if you're willing to brave morning breath, where the world just dissolves away and you experience that unique connection.
That's what love is. It's actions. You don't feel love, you show it.
And that's important to remember because a year from now, the love goggles are gone. If you didn't already know this, let me be the first to tell you - the love goggles disappear in your first year, sometimes the second. And when they’re gone, all those quirky traits you currently find endearing…become…. annoying.
Erica, the whistling Jon's nose makes when he sleeps that today you find so cute because it allows you to see him as vulnerable - in a year, you'll be pulling out your hair and reaching for the ear plugs. You’ll have visions of pets and small children grasping the furniture to avoid being sucked into the enormous vacuum. You’ll think: “There must be something medically wrong with him. Normal people do not sound like that.”
Today, Jon may think that Erica's public belching habit is cool. That it shows she's unafraid to flout traditional conventions and societal requirements of women. In a year, when they take a cross country road trip and decide to break for dinner at truck stop, and she challenges a trucker to a belching contest, and proceeds to soundly beat him, he'll think it's embarrassing, not cool. (NOTE: This part was cut due to my wife's admonishment).
But that’s okay. That's how marriage works. That’s normal. But this is also when most marriages fall apart because the couple doesn’t know love is a verb. They don't remember that their marriage is the most important relationship of their life and they need to stay committed to it. They want every day to be fireworks like the fourth of July, and all of a sudden they wake up and it's July 5, and they don't know what to do.
And the truth is, the ones that decide to give up miss out on the best part of marriage. Because after the love goggles are gone, when you are no longer blinded by the initial rush of dopamine - that is when the true bonding happens. It’s during this phase that you will lay the foundation for the rest of your relationship. It's when you develop the lasting bond that forever binds you to each other.
Without the love goggles, you get to see each other for who you are, and you really begin to appreciate each other. Biologically, you start releasing different hormones – hormones associated with bonding; the same hormones a mother starts to produce after giving birth that encourage infant bonding - and, if you remember that love is a verb, the activities you share will reinforce your bond. You’ll begin to appreciate Jon for being a hard worker, a good painter of walls, and great with kids. You’ll begin to appreciate Erica for having an entrepreneurial spirit, for her bravery, and for possessing an analytical mind.
You’ll also start speaking your own language. You’ll have looks that only you two can interpret. You’ll develop your own terms, like referring to Valentine’s Day as “Singles Awareness Day” as you laugh diabolically all the way to your favorite restaurant. You’ll be able to recognize those subtle changes in mood, and know if that mood requires you to provide space or assistance. It’s after the love goggles are gone that you truly feel fulfilled.
Those who hope the love goggles will permanently skew their vision should reflect upon the wisdom of Mark Twain who once said: "Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century." I believe him. Because when the honeymoon is over, that's when the real love begins.
Now I'm not saying this will be easy - most things worth having are not easy to attain. Your experiences in the dating pool taught you that lesson. Luckily, you’re not alone. You have us. Everyone here today, by the simple action of attending your wedding, by being here to witness you profess a lifetime commitment to this relationship, everyone here is now on the hook to help. All of us, for as long as we are in your lives, have an obligation to remind you that love is a verb. That you show love by your actions, through your commitment, and that the best is always yet to come.
You have that promise from me. I’m on the hook...because I am not going to be your dating pool lifeguard again.
And because I am committed to ensuring your relationship stands the test of time, I am going to share with you a story that was told to me shortly before my own marriage. I hope it helps you as much as it has helped me.
While we were planning our wedding, I worked at a small financial services company here in Phoenix. I worked with an older gentleman named Ruben. Ruben was nearing retirement and had been married to his wife for over forty years. I asked him if he had any advice for me, the soon-to-be-married. He said "no". Undeterred, I asked him how he had stayed married for so long. He said: "we never fought". I said I didn't believe him, and he shared this story with me:
His wife is from the Midwest. Grew up on a farm in Nebraska. He spent his whole life here in Arizona. They met when she moved here for work. When they married, they decided the perfect honeymoon would be at the Grand Canyon – close, affordable, and she had never been.
On their second day, they took a mule ride to the bottom of the canyon. When the trip had just begun, his wife's mule spooked and tried to run down the trail. They nearly fell in. His wife, tough as nails and the bravest woman he’d ever met, remained calm, gained control of the mule and leaned over and whispered in the mule's ear 'That's one'. About halfway down, her mule took issue with the mule behind her getting too close, and kicked at it, nearly bucking his wife from her saddle. Again, she remained calm, controlled the mule, and gently whispered 'That's two'. When they finally reached the canyon floor and started to unload their packs, her mule started bucking again and her gear flew everywhere. Calmly, she walked over to the guide's mule, pulled out the pistol he carried on the hikes for defense against cougars and rattlesnakes, and she shot the mule dead saying: 'That's three'.
Well, he couldn't believe what he had just seen. The guide is throwing a fit, the group is in chaos. He walks over to his new bride and demands "why did you do that? It was just a dumb animal. It didn't know any better."
She looked at him and said "that's one".
He says: “After that, we never really fought.”
Best of luck to the new couple.
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