Tiger Beat - April 1971

Making Marriage Work

Marriage is the biggest step two people in love can take and making this precious union work is often a difficult job.  But it can be done, and Bobby wants to tell you what he feels is the

It was in a big city in the midwest, and the concert was over.  I had been relaxing in my dressing room, full of the warm, gentle glow that I always get when an audience gives me back everything that I try to give them.

It's my favorite feeling in the world, and I like to hold on to it as long as I can, so sometimes after a really good concert, I'll just sit quietly in my dressing room for an hour or so, before I pull myself together and get to the down-to-earth business of packing up to move everything to the next town.

Finally, I got up.  The huge theatre was empty and I walked in the half-darkness from my dressing room toward the stage.  I walked out onto the empty stage, where only an hour ago, music and singing had made everything so bright and happy.

It seemed kind of sad now, dark and too quiet, like someone who has waited a long time for something that never happened.  My good mood was evaporating fast, so I turned quickly to go back up the long steps to the dressing room.

UNHAPPY FEELING - It was then that I saw her, huddled in the darkness at the edge of the stage.  One look told me where the unhappy feeling that filled the stage was coming from.  I went over to her, and she was crying.  I never really know what to do when I meet someone who is terribly unhappy, but I know that listening can't hurt, so I asked her to talk about it if she wanted to.

She poured out a story I've heard hundreds of times, in letters and in meeting with girls who need someone to talk to and choose me, for some reason.   Basically, it goes like this:

She was sixteen, and she was in love.  Her boyfriend was a little older, and he was getting a job soon, but her parents didn't seem to like him - in fact, once or twice they had told her to stop seeing him!

Well, now she had a real problem:  she and he had decided they wanted to get married, and her parents had practically gone crazy.

What is boiled down to was this.  Either she could marry him, or she could go on having her parents as friends, but it didn't look like she could do both.   She was really confused and very sad, and she didn't have the slightest idea what to do.

IT MIGHT HELP - What I told her is what I'm going to tell you now.  It's no answer, but it might help someone else who is in the same fix.  She told me it helped her, even if all it did was let her  think about it in a slightly different way!

Okay, here it is (and it's probably not what you wanted to hear):   Marriage is probably the hardest thing in the world!  Climbing Mount Everest might be more difficult, or being elected President, but I doubt it!

Of course, it's a little weird for me to be running around like The Olde Expert, spouting off about marriage just as though being married was the most natural thing in the world to me, but even though I've never done it myself, I had the benefit of being pretty closely involved in my parents' marriage, and I think that was a pretty good one!  Anyway, it taught me a lot that I hope I can put into my marriage, whenever that happens!

It taught me that making a marriage work is the biggest commitment you can ever make.  You have to be willing to do anything at all, to give up anything, to go anywhere - to decide, then and there, that your marriage is the most important thing in the world to you - and not just for the good times!  In fact, it's the bad times that really make a marriage grow!

THEY'RE EXCITED - Any two people can get along while things are going smoothly.  That's how it is with most couples who are only dating - they've usually got parents to take care of their real money problems, and when they see each other, they're usually looking their best and they're excited and happy about being together.

They almost always have someplace to go, something to do that both of them want to do, and when the evening is over, they'll go home to their separate houses, happy and full of good thoughts about one another.

If they wake up a little tired or grumpy the next morning, it doesn't matter.  No one will have to put up with that side of them except their parents!

When you fall in love that way, it's only natural to think, "If we got married, it would always be like that . . . I'd never have to go home!"

But let me tell you, from the depths of my vast wisdom, the surest way to guarantee a marriage won't work is to think of it as kind of a long, endless date!

The fact is, when you marry a person, that person is going to see every side of you, not just your "best angles."  That person is going to have to live with you through gray mornings when the alarm drags you out of bed too early, and colds that make you cranky, and depressions and tears, and a puffy face from crying, and money worries that make you both feel that it's just hopeless because there's no place you can go for help!

Marriage brings together two very different people with different hopes and fears, different good days and bad days, and it keeps them together, even when all the shiny dreams have worn away and only reality is left!

A NEW SET - So many girls, and young men too, run to marriage as a dream that will pull them out of everything that is wrong with their lives, only to find that they have a whole new set of problems!

And, although they have probably learned to handle their old problems pretty well, they don't really have any idea how to deal with these new ones!  For many of these people, marriage becomes a nightmare, a trap just like the life they thought they left behind!

Faced with the kind of reality, the worst thing of all can happen - at last, even the love they feel for their beloved finally wears away, leaving them with nothing at all!

Well, all this sounds pretty cold and cheerless, doesn't it?  But, if you'll remember, a while back I said it was the bad times that can really bring a couple together, and that's what I want to talk about now!

UPS AND DOWNS - My parents have been married for more than twenty-five yeas.  In that time, they've had ups and down, almost every kind of trouble that fate could throw at them, but they've made it through, and as they met their troubles and shared their joys the love between them grew and grew until now it's so deep that it could never be measured!

The best marriage is one in which two people agree to help one another through life, knowing all along that life is sometimes hard and cold, sometimes rich and full.

There's no one you love like someone you've helped - just doing it makes you feel better about yourself and brings you closer to the person you're helping.

My parents, and many young couples I've met around the country, turn every problem into a chance to help one another, and in this way, they guarantee that no hard times can wear their love away - all it can do is make it stronger!

It's hard to do, but it can be done, and the reward is the greatest in the world - real, life-long love!