Jun 5, 2007 10
On relationships: Notes from an old married lady
In which goblinbox hosts a SECOND guest post! Please welcome Kristie as she speaks of marriage.
I have been married for 13 years to a man I’ve loved for over 16. By today’s standards, I was a child bride, marrying him 2 weeks after I graduated college as I did, though we dated from October of my freshman year. If I’d been smart I would’ve married him at Christmas instead of in May, and saved the 5 months double rent. But when you’re 22 you don’t know anything, and with romance in your heart, stars in your eyes, and your mother’s morality wagging its finger in the back of your mind, you don’t really think of a marriage as a financial arrangement that could be managed for maximum return. Well, the 22-year-old me didn’t. Perhaps some of you were wiser and more worldly than I. Then again, there’s a lot to be said for innocence. But that’s another post.
I truly believe that if anyone tried to tell us what marriage truly meant, even good marriages, we would think they were lying. And if we believed them, no one would ever get married. So it’s probably best no one tries. Though I often think that if we were spoon-fed a more realistic view of what human beings can expect of each other in partnership, we’d be happier, and less hard on ourselves and those we love than we are when the fairytale comes crashing down about us.
Sometimes when I look at this man I live with, and wonder how it is possible that after all these years living with him, knowing him better than anyone else on earth, he is still very much a mystery. I wonder if I’m as mystifying to him. He likes to tell me that every time I ask, “What the fuck are you doing?” he is obviously successful in keeping the mystery alive.
All that said, I’d do it all again. I know I’m with the right man, and while we don’t always like each other every minute of every day, love is the bedrock we reach when we’re scraping bottom. And even when we’re pissed at each other, we still like each other better than anyone else in the world, and we’re cognizant of that. When we’re not pissed at each other, life is pretty grand. He makes me laugh, and he takes good care of me, and he lets me buy all the guitars I want. I make him laugh, I take good care of him, and I have a killer rack. So we keep coming home to each other. Marriage vows are made over and over; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I have no delusions that we are impervious to the cracks and strains that break other marriages. We do the best we can, like anyone else, and hope our luck holds.
I think there are advantages to marrying young, in that you grow up together, and forge a life that always includes the two of you; it’s built that way. When you marry young, you don’t have to argue over whose stuff stays and whose doesn’t when you move in together; you don’t have any stuff. My friends who have married later in life, when they are more established as individuals, have, to my perception, found it more difficult to merge two lives into one, agonizing over decisions to share names and checking accounts just for starters. And I know that if my life changed, and I was starting over tomorrow, I am not the pliable girl I was at 22. I’d probably avoid marriage entirely, and keep a ready harem of handsome and available men to meet my womanly needs when I wanted them to, and stay out of my hair otherwise.
In many ways, our life together is exactly what I dreamed of, hoped for, and expected out of married life. However, if someone had foretold for me all the events that would befall us (or we would rush headlong into) in our marriage, I would’ve told them to put down the crack pipe. Still, we are still here, together. And that’s something.
Wedding Vows
A marriage is
a thousand tiny heartbreaks:
the heartbreaks of change, of crushed hope
and forgotten dreams;
the heartbreaks of empty hours, empty conversation
and empty pockets;
the heartbreaks of misinterpreted messages, misaligned priorities
and mismatched flatware;
the heartbreaks of vicious truths, vicious accusations
and vicious circles;
the heartbreak of begging for recognition, being unable to offer any,
and lonely, silent minutes of our aching need;
the heartbreaks of tired arms, tired lives
and tired excuses.
I had no idea how we’d maim each other,
aiming with deadly accuracy honed over years.
I had no idea of our capacity for forgiveness.
I had no idea that to carry the heartbreak, and to be standing still,
together,
is love, too.
20 Aug 2002
