Marriage may be where its been but its not where its at.-- "Have I Got a Girl For You" (from Company)
For being the guy who wrote "I Feel Pretty," that Sondheim guy sure is a laugh riot.
A recent happy hour encounter with Bitter Married Guy, urging me not to rush into marriage (having never been married at 43, an unlikely possibility), left me wondering more urgently about a subject I recently fancied about-are any of you married people happy?
Having asked that question, let me immediately answer myself and say that yes, Virginia, there are indeed many happy married people. But sometimes I think maybe that kind of happiness is more along the lines of accepting one's reality than true happiness.
What has me worried is the frequency with which I hear such vicious complaints by married people about their marriages. True, you shouldn't necessarily form general conclusions based just on anectdotal evidence, or at least, you shouldn't always do that, but I think its like one out of 10 marrieds I know that are just busting out happy about it.
Everyone else is like the walking wounded of matrimony. They all feel trapped like General Zod in the Phantom Zone, enduring an arrangement they never bargained for or expected. Someone forgot to tell them that little habit of hers of squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube that seemed so cute at first gets on your very last nerve after about 15 years. These people are cheating, or want to cheat, or think a lot about how to cheat, or talk about trying to cheat, or have platonic romances instead of cheating. Husbands think their wives are "controlling"; wives think their husbands ignore them or are totally inconsiderate of their needs. So I ask again, who among you are really happy?
I need to know what the deal is. Of course, I'm hardly one to lecture here. I've broken up with women for (1) owning a pair of white dress shoes; (2) cheating at putt-putt golf; (3) running a wash cycle without putting in any clothes; and (4) not knowing who Burt Bacharach is. Hey, Ben Stiller dumped a girlfriend because she didn't like Bottle Rocket, so beat it (of course, justifying one's conduct by comparisons with Derek Zoolander really doesn't make for a compelling case). So my ejection threshold may be a bit lower than some, but I would like to know what's going on with all the rest of you.
I have some thoughts about what might be driving some of this. I think it has mainly to do with people's unrealistic expectations about marriage. Marriage is what happens after the wedding, and it has more to do with balancing checkbooks, buying insurance, and fixing the leaking faucet than taking horseback rides on the beach together at sunset. Marriage is what you get when you cut each other in on your chores and errand lists. I have a feeling no one tells you that going in.
Or maybe its that people don't really know each other til they get a couple of years in. Or your perspective changes. When you were dating, maybe his hot body, grunt-like bad-ass communications skills remotely resembling James Dean, and ability to provacatively mow down shots with your girlfriends at happy hour seemed way cool. But it also led you to ignore the fact that he's Jewish (and you're Catholic), or a Libertarian (and you're not), or that he hasn't kept a job longer than six months (and you have), or that there's just a lot of the time when he's a total jerk to you (and your parents, and your friends, and your boss, and so on). Its not so much fun now, at least, not when you can't go back to your place when the date's over.
I've known marrieds who are pretty selfish about their lives. Some intentionally have separate friends, take separate vacations, go on separate social occasions, scrupulously keep all the money separate. If that's what you want to do, why get married? What happened to "the two shall become one"? (that's from Mark for those who never went to Sunday School). Although I really could see it getting pretty crowded after a bit. How would you ever be alone? There's always someone at home coming up on you with this problem or that, or wanting to know when you're going to empty the dishwasher, clean the gutters, take out the trash, vacuum, do the taxes, fertilize the yard...I'm thinking meeting the fellas at Hooter's for wings could seem mighty tempting at a certain point.
Maybe you dream of that "other life" you think you were always destined to live, and would be living, if it weren't for the broad you married who currently is inhaling twinkies in the la-z-boy standing in your way. You know that other life, the one where you're a rock star, or a relief pitcher, or you run a bar in Cabo (like the bar Tom Cruise ran in Jamaica in Cocktail, only a lot less gay). That one. I hate to break the news, but you probably wouldn't have been an astronaut even if you hadn't married what's her name. You were always destined to work in the audit department and wear short sleeve dress shirts, not fly the space shuttle.
I've also known people, ok, women mainly, who view their spouse as just another home improvement project. Its one thing to reupholster the couch or put in new tile; its quite another to turn one person into someone totally different. Oh, sure, Professor Higgins and Dr. Frankenstein may have done it, in fiction, but in real life, its pretty much impossible and undesirable to totally change someone. They eventually resume their original form, like the Terminator T-1000 after a direct shotgun blast to the head. Hey, Lovie, he's a husband, not a frayed armchair.
People change over time too. Some are like wines, improving and refining as they age. Others are like cheese, just getting moldy and gross. I know I'm totally different than I was at 25. Maybe the person you were madly in love with at 25 is totally different now after 20 years have gone by. Something about spending all your time working, running errands, taking kids to about 15 different events every day, obsessing over paying every month's bills, and not having sex probably takes a little more of a toll than gray hair. I'm sure that's what that Houston dentist was thinking as Clara Harris was running him over the second time. By accident. I guess that's what you call "growing apart."
Finally, I've always thought one of the main reasons people aren't happily married is that the benefits of marriage aren't as immediately obvious as the benefits of being single. The benefit of having a long-term partner whom you can count on your whole life isn't something you can just see; the joys of unfettered happy hour cruising with boozed up legal secretaries at Cool River, however, are more readily obvious (or so I'm told).
One other thing I want to impress upon everyone is I'm on to your Marriage Cult. No matter how much marrieds complain about their situation, they all want you to join them and get married too. They're like Mormons or Amway dealers, pushing their marriage kool-aid at every opportunity. Nice try, but I will stay very happily alone, wearing my sweat pants, blogging about marriage while drinking my caffeine-free red tea and listening to "Promise Her Anything."
On second thought...
For being the guy who wrote "I Feel Pretty," that Sondheim guy sure is a laugh riot.
A recent happy hour encounter with Bitter Married Guy, urging me not to rush into marriage (having never been married at 43, an unlikely possibility), left me wondering more urgently about a subject I recently fancied about-are any of you married people happy?
Having asked that question, let me immediately answer myself and say that yes, Virginia, there are indeed many happy married people. But sometimes I think maybe that kind of happiness is more along the lines of accepting one's reality than true happiness.
What has me worried is the frequency with which I hear such vicious complaints by married people about their marriages. True, you shouldn't necessarily form general conclusions based just on anectdotal evidence, or at least, you shouldn't always do that, but I think its like one out of 10 marrieds I know that are just busting out happy about it.
Everyone else is like the walking wounded of matrimony. They all feel trapped like General Zod in the Phantom Zone, enduring an arrangement they never bargained for or expected. Someone forgot to tell them that little habit of hers of squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube that seemed so cute at first gets on your very last nerve after about 15 years. These people are cheating, or want to cheat, or think a lot about how to cheat, or talk about trying to cheat, or have platonic romances instead of cheating. Husbands think their wives are "controlling"; wives think their husbands ignore them or are totally inconsiderate of their needs. So I ask again, who among you are really happy?
I need to know what the deal is. Of course, I'm hardly one to lecture here. I've broken up with women for (1) owning a pair of white dress shoes; (2) cheating at putt-putt golf; (3) running a wash cycle without putting in any clothes; and (4) not knowing who Burt Bacharach is. Hey, Ben Stiller dumped a girlfriend because she didn't like Bottle Rocket, so beat it (of course, justifying one's conduct by comparisons with Derek Zoolander really doesn't make for a compelling case). So my ejection threshold may be a bit lower than some, but I would like to know what's going on with all the rest of you.
I have some thoughts about what might be driving some of this. I think it has mainly to do with people's unrealistic expectations about marriage. Marriage is what happens after the wedding, and it has more to do with balancing checkbooks, buying insurance, and fixing the leaking faucet than taking horseback rides on the beach together at sunset. Marriage is what you get when you cut each other in on your chores and errand lists. I have a feeling no one tells you that going in.
Or maybe its that people don't really know each other til they get a couple of years in. Or your perspective changes. When you were dating, maybe his hot body, grunt-like bad-ass communications skills remotely resembling James Dean, and ability to provacatively mow down shots with your girlfriends at happy hour seemed way cool. But it also led you to ignore the fact that he's Jewish (and you're Catholic), or a Libertarian (and you're not), or that he hasn't kept a job longer than six months (and you have), or that there's just a lot of the time when he's a total jerk to you (and your parents, and your friends, and your boss, and so on). Its not so much fun now, at least, not when you can't go back to your place when the date's over.
I've known marrieds who are pretty selfish about their lives. Some intentionally have separate friends, take separate vacations, go on separate social occasions, scrupulously keep all the money separate. If that's what you want to do, why get married? What happened to "the two shall become one"? (that's from Mark for those who never went to Sunday School). Although I really could see it getting pretty crowded after a bit. How would you ever be alone? There's always someone at home coming up on you with this problem or that, or wanting to know when you're going to empty the dishwasher, clean the gutters, take out the trash, vacuum, do the taxes, fertilize the yard...I'm thinking meeting the fellas at Hooter's for wings could seem mighty tempting at a certain point.
Maybe you dream of that "other life" you think you were always destined to live, and would be living, if it weren't for the broad you married who currently is inhaling twinkies in the la-z-boy standing in your way. You know that other life, the one where you're a rock star, or a relief pitcher, or you run a bar in Cabo (like the bar Tom Cruise ran in Jamaica in Cocktail, only a lot less gay). That one. I hate to break the news, but you probably wouldn't have been an astronaut even if you hadn't married what's her name. You were always destined to work in the audit department and wear short sleeve dress shirts, not fly the space shuttle.
I've also known people, ok, women mainly, who view their spouse as just another home improvement project. Its one thing to reupholster the couch or put in new tile; its quite another to turn one person into someone totally different. Oh, sure, Professor Higgins and Dr. Frankenstein may have done it, in fiction, but in real life, its pretty much impossible and undesirable to totally change someone. They eventually resume their original form, like the Terminator T-1000 after a direct shotgun blast to the head. Hey, Lovie, he's a husband, not a frayed armchair.
People change over time too. Some are like wines, improving and refining as they age. Others are like cheese, just getting moldy and gross. I know I'm totally different than I was at 25. Maybe the person you were madly in love with at 25 is totally different now after 20 years have gone by. Something about spending all your time working, running errands, taking kids to about 15 different events every day, obsessing over paying every month's bills, and not having sex probably takes a little more of a toll than gray hair. I'm sure that's what that Houston dentist was thinking as Clara Harris was running him over the second time. By accident. I guess that's what you call "growing apart."
Finally, I've always thought one of the main reasons people aren't happily married is that the benefits of marriage aren't as immediately obvious as the benefits of being single. The benefit of having a long-term partner whom you can count on your whole life isn't something you can just see; the joys of unfettered happy hour cruising with boozed up legal secretaries at Cool River, however, are more readily obvious (or so I'm told).
One other thing I want to impress upon everyone is I'm on to your Marriage Cult. No matter how much marrieds complain about their situation, they all want you to join them and get married too. They're like Mormons or Amway dealers, pushing their marriage kool-aid at every opportunity. Nice try, but I will stay very happily alone, wearing my sweat pants, blogging about marriage while drinking my caffeine-free red tea and listening to "Promise Her Anything."
On second thought...
4 comments:
for someone who doesn't want to get married, you sure spend a lot of time thinking about it.
I think your perspective may be shaped by your sample population. I would imagine you are a magnet for unhappy, married women who are near your age. After all, if one can penetrate the cynical veneer, you are cute in a uber conservative way (like an Alex P. Keaton doll with a convertible Beemer)... Anyway, I think people are either going to be happy or unhappy and marriage has less to do with it than what's going on in life (children, ridiculous expectations, money). I am happy. However, I don't know if C is very happy after reading your post. He instantly stopped sealing our new tile floor.
Yes, you can be happy in marriage, but failing to understand what marriage is (and isn't) will certainly lead to disappointment.
Marriage is a contract between two people to build the rest of their lives together. This usually involves setting up house together and raising children. Neither of these things is particularly easy or romantic. Failure to understand that "building a life together" is really WORK (hence the term "build) and not 'magic' is what kills most marriages.
You have to *want* the Marriage. You have not want spending the rest of your life "starting over" with someone new.
And you have to choose the right person. Nothing is as much fun as it could be unless Daren is there. Oh, I can have fun without him, but his presence makes me happier.
Look at what your parents did together on a regular basis. They dealt with a lot. Was it worth it? Is that for you? I am sure that this generation ignores the work detail when going into marriage.
Marriage is a sacrifice. Taking actions against a marriage belittles the sacrifice of the other spouse.
A trip to Hooters by my husband or my going off to a 'platonic' lunch with a guy I met from the gym wouldn't help.
What a person does (helps or hurts) in a marriage really defines what the marriage means to them.
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