Now I know I never had a great marriage, but as the old adage goes, those who can't, teach. I think it might be because it's much easier seeing how these things work best, pun intended, when you are on the outside looking in. There's only one ingredient needed to make a great marriage, yes, one. But, it must be from both sides, it must be genuine, and it must be understanding. Love. As another adage goes, "Love conquers all."
Oh nonsense? My grandparents appeared to have the most amazing marriage looking at it on its face value. It was years in the making, not even sure I've fully reconciled, that my grandparents, especially from my grandmother's side, hated each other. Certainly my grandfather seemed extremely proud of some of my grandmother's accomplishments. A welder during WWII for example. Yet in hindsight, I see a man who thought he married one woman and got another. He probably married more for money than my grandmother did. He came from a farming family, so not rich albeit not poor. My grandmother on the other hand was the daughter of a banker. I don't need to explain my great grandfather had money. My grandfather married a sassy, independent, outspoken woman. So when that was squelched by the world around her, marriage, not being able to work in anything that she really wanted to, and my grandfather out drinking, having a life, while she stayed at home and waited, taking care of children, the house, cooking and cleaning with little else for herself, eventually that alone was too much for her. Whatever love she had for him died in a house she felt trapped in, slowly, as if dying from a hidden cancer, until it was replaced with contempt, loathing, and hate. Sadly, as was the lot in life for a lot of women then (you married and there was no divorce), she simply made "peace" with it and then it was just "work".
Their marriage was never work for my grandfather. He probably perceived it as such. As I stated earlier, the woman he married was not the woman my grandmother was forced into. It wasn't necessarily either of their choices what her lot in life was regulated to. He loved the woman he married, he knew it was the same woman, but there was no denying she wasn't her anymore. So he longed for what was gone and regaled me in stories of who she was to remind himself. Oddly, I don't believe it ever occurred to him that it was partially his fault she withered away from him. In his imaginations, he just didn't see that he could've easily encouraged her to have her own business freeing her from the fetters of society and not been out carousing with his male buddies while she silently suffered alone as the maid, the cook and the caregiver. It simply never occurred to him that he was just as much to blame as society for crushing the flower he once loved.
Love is precious. I might be deluding myself that they ever loved each other. But I also know my grandmother would say "it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one." Is it? What she was really telling me was the difference between her father's choice, another man from similar upbringing and wealth, versus my grandfather. We're they ever in love? I believe so.
We certainly repeat the mistakes we see as children. What I thought I saw was a "perfect" marriage, at some subconscious level. As a result, my marriage was a mirror of theirs. A man who thought a woman's place was in the home but still tried or feigned it wasn't. When I realized that was the track I was on, I understood that was going to be "work" and wanted no part of the lives they had at a conscious level.
Oh yes I know. That's examples of failure. How is that proving love is the only ingredient? So you hear these words compromise, commitment, dedication, loyalty, friendship, never go to bed angry, these all are great advice. But these alone, hell every single word you throw out there on how to make a marriage "work" is bullshit if you don't love someone. Love is selfless, bending (not breaking), kind, forgiving, supportive... Love is the glue. One of my favorite sayings when not happy with someone I love, "I love you but I don't like you right now.". You don't always like, approve of, or even want to be around the person you love. Anyone with kids that they love understands this saying. The difference with a spouse is you choose this person. They chose you. It's not implied as it is for a parent. If you kill it, all the compromise, dedication, loyalty, etc in the world won't change the rest of your marriage is going to be "work". Selfish behaviors are often the slow cancer that kills love. Affairs eat at a person's ego, eventually cutting deep enough to end any love that was ever there. Again this is from long term observation of marriages marred with this behavior. Even if they stay married like my grandparents had to, the smiles and niceties, masks of toleration, don't hide the truth. Even a child will see it even though they don't know what they see.
Friendship often can't repair the damage done. It doesn't hurt, but then that friendship, something that takes time to cultivate, can't be the main ingredient. Why? Because so many people that marry for love only 2 or 3 months in and last a lifetime. Or the guy who meets a girl and says immediately by the end of that evening that he's going to marry that girl and spends the rest of his life head over heels for her. Doesn't happen, right naysayers? George HW and Barbara Bush. That's actually their story and while extremely rare not actually uncommon for those couples that make it the long haul. Love, true love, is then the glue holds everything else in place.
There are lots of movies where we see women of the Silent and Boomer generations hate the men they married. It's a slow process to that point because it had to be. When you were stuck married for your livelihood or for your children, you keep trying to tell yourself it's what you want. You can work through it. You can "fix" it. You can't. Once there, it's like the trap that goes around and around. In a movie (bonus if you know the movie), a strong, wealthy, Southern matriarch tells her only son's wife when the younger woman catches her husband, the son, cheating that if she wants to be married to a man like him (wealthy, arrogant, etc) she's got to be stronger, put her foot down and accept on occasion this will be an issue because he's a wanderer. Oh for fuck's sake.
No, no, you don't. A man has never, NEVER, had to put up with a woman running around unless he's a geezer married to arm candy and doesn't want to be embarrassed by having to admit he was taken in by a gold digging ho-bag. So bluntly, no woman should have to either. If you make this choice, then own it. But again, settle on the fact your marriage will always be "work" and no matter how much you love him, or her, there will be times that you won't believe he (she) loves you. In fact, at those times, he/she probably doesn't. Love isn't selfish and it drives you passed most of those more selfish behaviors if you really love someone. A single mistake can be a learning moment. Several of the same mistakes is a pattern for contempt and loathing.
Sure, I do know people who love each other who have made it over a rough patch. Not many. Most honestly end up divorced sooner or later. Again, once the love is gone a crack in the relationship becomes like a cancer that's only treatable in the very early stages. There's always one trying to cling to what's left. The other one staying for a myriad of reasons. It goes back and forth for several years and then crash and burn. The only exceptions I've seen are where they come to some mutual benefit view.
Let's call this mutual benefit the Clinton theory. No one in this country believes Hillary and Bill Clinton love each other, even themselves. His very public affairs alone make both men and women cringe and cause even their most ardent supporters to acknowledge theirs is much more a business relationship than a marriage. As the advice of that matriarch says it in so many words. Suck it up buttercup and get what you want out of this relationship. Hillary Clinton set women's rights back 20 years with her version of Stand by Your Man. No one I know ever denies she stayed and got what she wanted out of it. Whether a Senator seat and almost the Presidency or a cushy retirement, financial stability, maintaining status quo, people that make these compromises to make a marriage "work" become embittered. Sure some of you say Hillary isn't bitter. No probably not anymore, but I bet after the 1st, 3rd, 5th, she was. Eventually she came to terms with it.
The Clinton theory is simple. You feel screwed and you decide to get yours. You give up on love and make peace with the fact that you've worked your whole life to some end. And a divorce will, in your mind, end everything you worked for to date. You will start over. You don't want to do that. Doesn't matter why. You've come to that conclusion. Your marriage is now not a loving relationship but a business partnership where you overlook your partner's failings. In a loving relationship, you overlook or even find those failings endearing. In these partnerships, they grate you, but it is what it is. You "work" through it for the business partnership and ignore any further dilemmas regarding a real marriage.
What's a great marriage look like? Love. I know this wonderful older couple. They have been married for 57 years and they love each other like it was just yesterday they married. This is a man who never cheated even though he could've because he loved his wife so. This is a woman who could've found better options if she had wanted, more money, more this, less that, but never gave those things a second thought because of how much she loved him. They don't describe their marriage as "work" but as love. They don't deny they have had tough and rougher patches. But those aren't how they describe their time, their lives together. They still are just this adorable loving couple. But neither of them ever forced the other to compromise their love and make it "work". They may look older but the sass, the joking, the loving looks, all those things we picture as the ideal marriage after so many years, they still have. That's all rolled into one word, Love.
Of course, there are limits each of us have. Almost all, I'm sure there are some rare exceptions, believe cheating is a deal breaker. Men will almost always cut it off faster than a woman will faced with their spouse cheating. But cheating isn't the only one. For some it might be a handful of things that add up to a limit. If we think about our limits, those things we will or can't live with, then we know our deal breakers. Ideally, we have no shame in sharing what those limits are when we fall in love and vice versa. When those limits are crossed, especially if they have been vocalized as to not being ambiguous, then there's only two options. The Clinton theory aka. "work". I'm not talking about who takes out the trash. If you can't overlook the petty ante stuff, you shouldn't be married to that person in the first place. But if you thought it was going to be split chores and suddenly you are taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, toilets, while Billy Boy (or Girl) sits on the couch drinking beer and scratching himself? Well over time even that can kill love. It's a small crack that propagates into the cancer, and when it's over, it's over. In the in-between, the whole thing will be... You got it. WORK.
My boss would tell you I love work. Even most of my previous bosses would say that, but they would all be referencing my actual work. Job. A relationship shouldn't be a job. A relationship can try your nerves, but love really does conquer that. You find those things become the most endearing eventually. The thing you wouldn't change because it's become your special thing about the person you love. Something you would be annoyed by with anyone else but somehow it's not in the least bit bothersome because of love. Think about it from another perspective. I love my boys. They could grate my nerves but the love I have for them has always made it easy to continue to try and help them become the best men they can be. Sometimes I'm really not happy with them, even not liking what they have done, but I still love them and still want to find a way to help. That's what love is. It's the glue between us and our children when they drive us crazy. It's the same glue when your spouse does something ridiculous. Eventually love makes you look back at it in humor. Once love is gone? It's just one more thing that you hate.
Sure I'm not really the one to be giving advice, but truth is simple. I've never remarried again because I've never been in love again. I've never gotten to that point that "this is the one" again. I've seen it happen for other people. Divorced isn't the end of the world. But if we've ever been in love, we know the difference. Initially there's just something that happens. You can't put your finger on it. It's intangible. A moment where you just know. Not a moment where you think. Not a moment where you settle. Just that split second where it comes into focus. I'm not sure it happens at the same time for both parties. I suspect it doesn't since we are afterall still individuals. So then it has to happen for both to have that perfect equation. Maybe as we get older, we get less bright eyed and everything looks hued over. Maybe I just figure if I'm going to do all the "work" I may as well be single. But being single has given me the luxury of looking in and at some of the most and least successful marriages without my own cluttering my mind. Those who can't, teach, because those that can't see the good and the bad of everyone else's choices.
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