Ang and I were on the back porch kvetching as we do
[let me pause to say we might write like we talk, which is to say with a bunch of asides and tangents and you'll just have to forgive us but if you need a single, solitary thought, maybe go to Twitter because a blog is not for you]
about this and that, and we were talking about how "marriage is hard." Angie's been married 17 years and she says when people ask her for her marriage advice she tells them "marriage is hard." Because it is.
But I think that "marriage is hard" requires more explanation. Some people will hear that and if they haven't been married or are just one of those naturally happy people (?!?) they think, "oh, marriage is hard, like sometimes you're a little peeved with one another, or darn it, I wish Henry would wear long pants more often, that rascal." But what Angie and I mean is "sometimes you will hate the person you are married to more than you thought it was possible to hate another person, and that hatred will in turn make you a despicable person, whom you would be ashamed for anyone else on the planet to see or know."
Obligatory aside: we both love our husbands very much.
And: we have both hated them, a lot, and wanted to leave them at different times, and sometimes fantasize divorce scenarios, even though we both feel we have pretty happy marriages overall.
I know.
So confusing.
But I think some women are like that, you know? In fact, I think more marriages than not are like that, regardless of what things look like from the outside. And it's just helpful to talk about it instead of pretending that marriage is only this one way or another. Let's be honest and admit that you can have--and probably will have--some very ugly spots in your marriage and still stay married. Happily, even, overall.
Or you can pretend things are perfect. But doing that sometimes leads to things ending in ways you don't expect. You can get old, as many of our parents or grandparents maybe did, still married, and still viciously hating each other. Not good.
Or you can get what we call the "divorce surprise." Where instead of trying to talk it through with your spouse and do the counseling bit and vent with your girlfriends and just be honest about how hard and difficult it can be, you just decide you've had it, and you spend a year secretly renting yourself an apartment, hiring a divorce lawyer, and divvying up your shared possessions in your head, then dropping the Dear John letter in your husband's lap on your way to pick up the kids from soccer camp.
Because women can do that, you know? I'm sure men can, too, but I think women in general just have those kinds of organizational skills. Just like we can drop a Hawaiian vacation in your lap--surprise! Aren't you excited?--we can drop a fully planned-out divorce in it, too.
I think the typical male hetero version of this is the running-away-with-the-younger-secretary bit. But that's not a surprise anymore. That's a cliche. One that really happens.
The vacation-style-divorce can happen, too, unless you talk about how hard marriage really is and get the honest help you need when you need it. We wish more women--and maybe the culture in general--were comfortable being real about what "marriage is hard" can really mean.
