Nothing for the swim home

If it's worth earning, it's worth protecting
Around the time the latest American war in Iraq started, there was a lot of talk about how the allies were gonna give the Iraqis democracy. I remember seeing an American intellectual being interviewed saying something along the lines of "The Iraqis aren't ready for democracy. They haven't had to fight and bleed to earn it..." - hardly a politically correct theory.
However I have to say, I happen to think there's a good amount of truth to it, for two reasons. 1) A contrived democracy doesn't have the durability to withstand the rigors of the real problems faced by it's constituents. 2) It's constituents haven't had the necessary paradigm shift in their collective consciousness to appreciate what a home-grown democracy costs and to put aside those who would threaten it in the name of lesser problems.
For the sake of this discussion, I would like to cast a husband/wife relationship into the same pattern. How do you know it's real if you have never had to work, or suffer to preserve it. It's kinda like knowing you're alive because you can feel pain. If your love is bought with well tested conviction, would you not set aside your problems or misgivings that may threaten it?

How much can you take?
But how much can your commitment take? At what point will you be pushed too far?
The is a line in one of my favorite movies which I believe is excellent inspiration to anyone asking themselves this question. It's from the film Gataca, where two brothers used to compete against each other to see who could swim the furtherest out to sea. Whoever turned back first was the looser. For most of their young lives, the older brother would always win. Then the younger brother started to win. Anyway, the dialog from the older brother to the younger brother goes something like this...
"How come I used to beat you all the time and now you beat me?"
The younger brother replies...
"It's simple. I left nothing for the swim home."
Basically what he did was give up his security. This society is obsessed with self preservation. Marriage partners a not competing against each other (even if they think they are), but against the things that would threaten their marriage: against the tyrany of distance between their points of view, against outside influcences and circumstance that would conspire against them, against their own weaknesses. Often times, what's called for is the giving up of things that used to bring us personal security in favor of embracing things that give the relationship security - then we can get our security from the relationship. But all too often we choose not to be confident in the relationship and we refuse to commit, preferring instead to hang on to things (habits etc) which have always made us comfortable. Thereby expressing less confidence in the relationship and degrading it in a way which will attract less of your confidence. It's a downward spiral.

Statistics say your marriage is more likely to fail than succeed. The odds are against your marriage and the dream that it was meant to fulfill. If you want to beat the odds, both of you have to be willing to leave nothing for the swim home.