Even though the situation is different today, this matter of choice still applies. One of the reasons marriages get into difficulty is this: people choose to get married. They choose to leave the single state to become involved in a new situation. Accepting responsibility, they say they will leave the old life. But they don't. Although they say they are willing and prepared to move into this new experience, they look back. They lack commitment because they don't know what the new relationship involves. Marriages fall into all kinds of problems in this area.

Let me illustrate this from a counseling experience I had many years ago when I first came to the United States. One very cold night in November a young couple with whom I'd met for premarital counseling came to my home for a late appointment. As they came in the door, the cold blast of wind outside seemed warm compared to the atmosphere between them. Something was wrong, as I detected quite quickly. Tactful person that I am, I decided to be diplomatic. So I said, "I see you had a fight on the way over here." After several denials, they finally admitted it. This is what had happened.

For many years, the young man had gone deer hunting.

I said, "Don't tell me.... Your wedding day is on the opening day of deer season."

She looked at me and said, "Right. And you know what he has said?"

"Yes. I know what he has said. He has said you're going to spend your honeymoon deer hunting."

"Yes. Can you believe that?"

I glanced at him and he said, "I go to the symphony with her, don't I?"

This was developing into a real problem in premarital counseling. I had to do something to defuse the situation, so I said to him, "I think we have a problem here. As I understand it, you feel that your young bride should go and sit up in northern Wisconsin, freezing and shooting deer as part of your honeymoon?"

She interrupted, "Right, right."

"And you feel that because you've gone to the symphony with her, she should go along with this?" He nodded yes.

"We've got to compromise, haven't we?" I asked. I turned to her, "Why don't you agree to go with him, and take your tape player and all your tapes of Beethoven and Mozart and Haydn and play them up there in the woods?" Then I looked at him, "How about you taking your rifle to the symphony and seeing if you can bag yourself a cellist?"

By this time they were smiling a little, and we could begin to address the problem. The solution to their problem was not compromise. Taking Beethoven on a deer-hunting trip was as ridiculous as bringing a rifle to the symphony. That kind of compromise simply wouldn't work.

This was my counsel to them: "To the best of my knowledge you don't have to get married. Why are you choosing to get married?" Looking at the man, I said, "If hunting is more important to you than marriage and your wife, why do you need a wife? Stick with deer. The simple fact of the matter is this: If you're going to enter a new relationship, it ought to be because you've chosen that new relationship over the old one."