Sometimes, my own clients glance at me with an appraising eye; wonder whether this chap is able to help them work through their marital issues, considering the fact that I am not married... yet. Well, their concern isn't unfounded, just that perhaps professionally, I don't think that is really an issue at all.
The concept of marriage is but a product of society; fundamentally, all love relationship presents the same amount of risk and benefits accompanied by (may not legally though) the union of the couple.Marriage is the complex equation of the same theory; doing higher order mathematical sums does not mean that all the basic I know become irrelevant just simply because we think that we are on 'different phase' of learning mathematics. In fact, the fundamentals might become even more important because if we fail to grasp them at lower level, it becomes obnoxiously harder as we climb further.
Personally, our education does not really help in the way we develop love relationship effectively. Why would I say that? One plausible clue might leads us to our education system: it shapes us in a way that it leaves little room for students to make mistakes. We are bred in a society of 'A' grade and anything less is in fact less worthy from a grade perspective. We view life in dichotomy - either you make it to the good schools/course or it is probably inferior dumping ground for you. How sad.
Ironically, relationship presents itself in shades of grey and face it: people are imperfect. Even the best of person has their own flaws. Singaporeans can have many 'A' graders in studies, but in love, the masses are often 'B' and 'C' graders. The reason is because we often fail and make mistakes in love through our experience and interaction pattern. There are very very few people I know that are natural 'A' graders in love. However, the critical difference is that failing in relationship does not make us any less worthy as a person than it would be for grades (the Singaporean elitist perspective - in fact inferior grades shouldn't make us feel like a piece of shit too). In fact, losing someone unworthy is indirectly a 'bonus', but we are so caught up harboring a meaningless relationship just because we need to have that perfection of stages. (Express > JC > Uni > Good paying job > married > give birth > retire > death) and couldn't see that clearly.
I remember telling a client 'my job is not to keep your marriage - that's your job'. Honestly, keeping the marriage without the love is like shitting without toilet paper. You will end up making shitty mess out of everything and the experience will gradually become ghastly.
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