(sorry for the delay-I was away from my computer for a few days)
First, let me say that the whole experience has completely shattered my beliefs and assumptions about love and marriage. We’ve been married 17 years now, and we both think we’re very fortunate; not only in comparison to each of our first marriages, but compared to many (most?) other couples who met/dated/married the standard “Western” way.
How can such a thing be successful? How can two people who have only met for a few days total, who’ve never had any sort of intimacy, and (in our case) are from two completely different cultures - different planets, almost - get married and live happily ever after? It is contrary to all our thinking, even that of our parents, on dating and familiarity before marriage.
I’ll tell you why it works: you eliminate the bullshit.
I started a long dissertation of the challenge of dating, but abandoned it; everyone knows. And what everyone knows is that the “mating dance” is, after all, a dance. In our telephone conversations before the engagement, there was no dancing; there were two people who were both looking for a mate, who knew what they wanted, and were straightforward in discussing it.
We couldn’t possibly be more different as people, but it just works. All those traditional ideas of “compatibility” seem completely worthless.
She taught me how to be a husband simply by being a wife.
And she taught me what love, what devotion are all about, without saying anything. My favorite example of this is when we had been married perhaps two years, and were on a car trip. Late one night we went through a McDonald’s drive-thru; I got a soda, she got hot tea. I went back onto the freeway and while driving, happened to notice out of the corner of my eye as she added the cream and sugar to her tea, then snapped on the lid. She had made it, not to her liking, but to mine. She did it on the off-chance that maybe I might like a sip at some point. She did it knowing that I’d not notice, but she did it anyway. For me.
That’s love. From an “arranged”* marriage.
- arranged in the common, modern middle-class sense: family knew friends who made acquaintance with my friends etc; pictures exchanged; meeting arranged; met, and agreed to talk more. Three weeks later we’re engaged. No hanky-panky until wedding. Seems pretty standard in the Asian communities.