I've been reading Dan Savage's book "Commitment" and thinking a lot about marriage. I know this column is supposed to be about sex, not marriage (and there are non-married partnerships which are essentially the same thing). That said, almost everyone my age is married/partnered and now some are also divorced. Which has naturally made me think a bit about marriage, my expectations, the world's expectations, my partner's expectations, and how those all frequently fail to match up.
I don't often say this, but I have felt since about age 25 that one of my purposes, or things to do in this incarnation, is to be married. That my role, my job for this lifetime, is to learn how to be in a long-term romantic partnership. That feels like a very strange thing to say, very unenlightened and anti-feminist to feel that my "purpose in life" (or one of them, anyway) is to be married.
But that's not how I mean it at all. Without getting into the complicated world of my belief structure (which is not only complicated but occasionally contradictory), one of the things I was meant to do in this incarnation was learn how to be with another person. To share a life with them. To learn to compromise. To learn how to be an individual, wholly myself, and also be an equal partner. I took my marriage, my wedding, very seriously and for me it was quite a big step and a big change, even though we'd been together for six years and cohabitated for four years.
It was a big change from living with him, actually. On one hand I didn't think it would be, and on the other hand I did. What I mean is that I thought I already knew how it would work since we'd already lived together, but the formalization of the relationship into a "marriage" was still something I took very seriously. My parents divorced when I was young, both then remarried, and my dad divorced again after a while. My grandparents on both sides were married "'til death us do part" but for both couples that was about 30 years, with the death of one partner in their early 50s.
But what I've been wanting to say is that marriage is a partnership. Not a business partnership, perhaps, but not a romance either. It's not a contract between two families like in the medieval times, but it's not being given flowers and taken out on dates every week either. It's not random surprise gifts and impromptu picnics. It's not having fantastic sex every single night.
What marriage (or a committed partnership) is, to me, is the understanding that you're going to put up with each other and work through the bad stuff. My marriage almost ended a few years ago and it almost ended once before it even got started. I think that actually is what made it last – that we knew we had gone through something crappy before and made it work. Because each time we've decided that yes, we love each other enough to try and make it work. (And the last time we also realized all the love in the world wouldn't be enough - we needed professional help from a marriage counselor, not just our own fumbling promises to "be better"). It sucked and was hard and painful and hurt, and we did it anyway.
And it's one of the things in my life that I'm the most proud of. To me, that's what marriage is – doing the right thing, not the easy thing.
Which is not to say that anyone getting a divorce is doing something wrong or taking the easy way out. I've seen it, and it looks like a horrible thing to go through. Ending a relationship is never easy. Our culture seriously fails to teach people how to work through the bad times and now to acceptably grieve the death of a relationship when it finally passes on. That's why there are such people as marriage counselors, I guess.
What I'm intending to stress here is the importance of choosing a partner who is a partner, someone you get along with, enjoy talking to, who doesn't do things that make you want to smother them with a pillow when they're asleep. At least, not often. You have to be honest with yourself about what you can and can't deal with and you have to plan on the other person not changing to suit your desires. Brutal honesty is critical here, not self-delusion.
And, in my opinion, you have to give the partnership a trial run with cohabitation for a few years first. In any relationship, people change. The trick is to change in ways that bring you closer rather than drive you apart. Only spending a few turns of the calendar together can give you a sense if you're moving in the same general direction together and won't go your separate ways as time goes on.
Finally, you and your partner also have to be willing to redefine marriage for yourself. Will you be monogamous or not? What will happen if one of you wants to get naked with someone else after 12 years? Who will deal with the money and how will you keep from being resentful and fighting about it? Most importantly, who kills the spiders and who vacuums wearing high heels?
The marriages and partnerships of people under 40 that I've seen work out are all, without fail, couples who have taken the time to talk about and come to terms with what works for them rather than what works for everyone else. Most of the people reading this don't have the kind of marriage their grandparents had and that's good. We're different people, our culture is changing and evolving. Just remember that it's not all hearts and flowers and incendiary sex. And never forget how important is it to talk to each other.
I know I'm getting a bit preachy here and not really very funny. But marriage means a lot to me and with the political and social climate the way it is, I feel it's important to talk about what marriage actually means, not just how bloody wonderful wedded bliss is. It has nothing to do with children or taxes or the government or getting the china you always wanted. It's you and your lover, making plans to move through time and space together, each on your own path, holding hands to bridge the gap.
And fucking each other silly as often as you can.
~ Posted 2 August 2006, property of Wanton Hussy. Please do not re-post without permission.