I saw a movie promo the other day for a remake of “Total Recall”. The premise is that it’s possible to record a person’s memories and inject them into others, resulting in the person thinking they have actually lived those things.
I wish I could do this with marriage; inject into every husband and wife what it is like to be in a truly great marriage. Imagine feeling and knowing what it’s like to trust and be trusted, to be best friends, to have an awesome sex life, to want and need to be together. If I could give that to people, I think the vast majority of them would do everything in their power to change their marriage. I think most would find they could do things they now feel are beyond their ability. If they understood what they could have, I know most people would be willing to do a lot and sacrifice a great deal.
Of course, I can’t do this. However, I can tell you how powerful it would be. I had the marriage full of pain and suffering, and now I have a marriage full of love, and joy, and plenty of mutually enjoyed sex. I’ve known both sides, and I would half kill myself to have what I have now if I lost it.
Please don’t take the sour grapes approach and tell yourself a good marriage really is not so great. Please don’t think there is anything else that will make up for not having a great marriage, because there isn’t. My suggestion is to go all out, don’t hold back. A great marriage is a prize worth any cost, fight for it with all you have.
And yes, I know you think she won’t change, and most of it is her fault anyway. I’m sure there is some truth in that, but not as much as you tell yourself. Even if you’re right, you can fight for a better marriage. I’m sure there are women who are so far gone nothing will make a difference, but I am convinced those women are very few.
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On the other side of the coin, I read a recent article in “Wired” magazine about research that is being done on a pill that will erase memories… particularly for victime of post-traumatic stress and the like…and I wish we could do this with marriage. I’m sure many marriages and re-marriages experience confict fueled by memories and regrets and what-ifs. If there were a way to erase those recurring thoughts, (praying “Get thee behind me” seems to have limited effectiveness,) then perhaps one could concentrate on the upside rather than dwell on the downside.
Lou – I’ve seen some information on ways to “erase” memories. As I understand it, the results would be loss of a specific memory, which would be of limited use when you think of years of marriage memories.
The deeper question is if removing the memories resets the reactions. Knee jerk reactions can be set by events, but the reactions are in a different part of the brain than the memory.
All that said, a way to selectively eliminate memories would certainly sell well!