Till Choice Do Us Part

Once upon a time I believed in fate.

I remember this vividly in the context of my previous relationship. I was in love, and I thought that a mysterious force was working in the background so that me and my girlfriend would be together. 

Of course, being an educated person, I didn't subscribe to a common superstition like the horoscope or tarots. My own superstition had to be more sophisticated. If you had asked me then, I would have spoken about the inner fate, which is an expression of the spiritual development of the individual, or something along those lines. 

Looking back now, I don't think that the love-is-fated angle added anything of value to my life. Sure, it was intoxicating at first. It's exhilarating to feel that the universe is on your side. Every little coincidence is a sign that you're on the right path. Every fresh moment of happiness is another confirmation of your faith. If you're feeling afraid or insecure, as I often did at the time, you can remind yourself that you're in the hands of fate. Whenever you're confused or undecided, you can let fate decide for you. ("Fate" being whatever will move the story forward at a particular junction. Should I move in with this person? Sure! It's fated.)

As always, there is a cost to buying comfort with untruth. When the honeymoon phase of the relationship ended, and we had to deal with real problems, the fate complex started to backlash. 

I mostly felt that there was no alternative to the relationship, because I could only be happy and fulfilled with this person. This made me feel alternately elated and miserable, according to how well things were going. 

For the same reason, I subconsciously believed that she would never leave me, which may have caused me to put less work in the relationship. 

Finally, when the relationship ended, I felt that I had strayed from the ‘course of true fate’, and because of this I would never be happy again.

The basic feature of the fate complex, regardless of how it’s constructed, is that the future is evolving towards a meaningful end goal (telos). If you buy into this conception, your choices about where to steer the future will be limited by your ideas about where the future is supposed to go; these usually hinge on some kind of narrative that describes the proper endpoint. This is not very useful. Ideally, your choices should be driven by three things only: the current state of the world, your preferences, and the things you learned from past experience. 

If you embrace the fate-complex, the stories you tell yourself about how things are supposed to go will distort your decisions. It is a typical case of narrative versus information. 

In the past, the marriage vow "Till Death Do Us Part" was meant to be taken literally. Marriage was an union sanctioned by God. Its telos was to last until one of the bethroted died (and even beyond). People still pronounce the vow today, but what they actually mean is: “till death do us part, or we are so hopelessly miserable that divorce is really the only option.” 

We no longer think that relationships have a predetermined end goal. Instead, we see them as mutual arrangements that should realise the values and preferences of both parties, and may be terminated when they no longer do so. 

These days I am entering a new relationship, but I no longer believe in fate. I believe in choice. 

Choice means there is no inescapable reason for you to single out a person out of thousands of possible matches, except that you wish to do so. 

Choice means there is no transcendental power making you or the other person be together, except that you both want it. 

Choice means that your partner will leave if you get lazy or screw up. (If you don’t screw up they might leave anyway, because life is hard.) 

Choice means that you can leave your partner if you’re unhappy. 

Choice means that if the relationship ends, you don’t have to kill yourself because you’ve failed to fulfill your destiny. 

From this perspective, choice is beautiful. It’s a gift borne out of freedom and responsibility. It’s like going to a field every day and always picking the same flower. It’s like saying to your partner: “I don’t have to be with you — but I want to.”

Obviously, there is always some degree of inertia and path-dependency in life. You don’t actively choose to pursue your career every day. Most days you just hear the alarm clock and go to work. And it’s easier to leave someone after a week than after you’ve been married for ten years and had children. 

But at the end of the day, you and your partner must choose whether you stay together or not. No one else can make that choice for you. Not even God. 

After dating for a month, I gave my girlfriend two pendants with our zodiac signs. It was a cheerful reminder that I don’t need the blessings of the stars to be with her.

So let us be together until choice do us part. May our self-awareness in its judgment strengthen our consent and fill us with its blessings. What choice has joined, let nothing but choice divide. Amen.