Generational Love or A Generational Curse
Written By Princess Miller
Are long-lived marriages, that are sometimes toxic, a goal to strive for or a generational curse to break? In minority culture, children often look upon the lasting marriages of their grandparents and parents as something they want for themselves. While the idea of marriage is not the problem, it becomes one when people maintain toxic relationships simply in order to reach this goal. This turns into people staying in unhealthy relationships with the hopes of making it last. While it is true that any lasting relationship will have its ups and downs, relationships that are always “down” are ultimately not good to stay in. When considering the relationships of their grandparents, people tend to forget that many were not in the position or did not have the resources to leave their marriages, leading to them naturally being longer. They had no choice but to “quietly endure and silently suffer.”
“Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait
The question that remains is: are we striving and staying in potentially unhealthy relationships out of love for our partners or in hopes of achieving this idealistic longevity? I asked many college students what their thoughts on this were and the consensus was“both”. We all dream of perfect love, yet are we actually in love with our partner? In this case, the response is typical “The love I have for them will be able to power through anything.” This leads to them believing that if they leave their relationship, they are giving up. It is important for people to understand that it is not giving up if the relationship is bad for one’s mental or physical wellbeing- that’s called saving oneself. Many people want to have their own great love story, yet the other leading role is sometimes not meant to be played by the person of your choosing, at least not at that time. Once we stop rushing to find and force a love like our grandparents/parents had and start asking real questions about those many years we were not able to see, we will realize many things. Not all of them were rainbows and gumdrops; there were times that, if they have the means to, would have resulted in them leaving the marriage. We must not only look at what we are shown of someone else’s relationship and must, in turn, consider the aspects that we cannot see.