459: There’s No Such Thing as an Original Divorce
Posted by Lucy on March 5th, 2010. Filed under: Uncategorized.Okay, I usually don’t like to quote extensively from books, because it feels a little like cheating to me, but I was just reading Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, a marginally fictionalized story about her own divorce, and I read this passage:
There have always been many things you can do short of actually ending a bad marriage — buying a house, having an affair and having a baby are the most common, I suppose — but in the early 1970s, there were two more. You could go into consciousness raising… and you could sit down with your husband and thrash everything out in a wildly irrelevant fashion by drawing up a list of household duties and dividing them up all over again. This happened in thousands and thousands of households, with identical results: Thousands of husbands agreed to clear the table. They cleared the table. They cleared the table and then looked around as if they deserved a medal. They cleared the table and hoped they would never again be asked to do another thing. They cleared the table and hoped the whole thing would go away. And it did. The women’s movement went away, and so, in many cases, did their wives.
Shocking how much things don’t change sometimes, isn’t it?
It’s funny, because when you look at your life’s total crackup, you think it’s different from the crackups everyone else has ever had. Sure, people break up all the time. Sure, people get divorced all the time. But my experience is special, it’s complex, it’s different… yet really, it’s not. This is why Dr. Susan can be so dead on in her analysis of what I’m going to go through and when I’m going to go through it; I swear, she can look at her watch and say, “In two days, fifteen hours, five minutes, and thirty-three seconds, you are going to become yet another cliche.” And she’s right, because she’s seen it before. She saw my parentified child issues, she saw the parent-child relationship I had set up in my marriage, and she knew exactly where everything was going, probably from the moment I walked in there.
There’s some comfort to it – not to being cliche, that’s always a big thwack to the ego, but in knowing that you’re not alone, that everything you’re experiencing, someone else has experienced before and survived. All of you come here and tell me that you know exactly what I’m talking about, and I think, “Oh, thank God,” because the only thing worse than being a hackneyed cliche is being so out there nutso that nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about.
Still, as I read this book – I’m suddenly into divorce lit, who saw that coming? – and I keep nodding along with everything she’s talking about, I wonder how it was possible that I went for all those years thinking my problems were unique, that we’d be able to work it out, that these same issues that had sunk millions of couples before us would somehow not sink us. It makes me feel like marriage only works under the strict adherence to mutual delusion; once one of you looks down and realizes that you long ago stepped off the edge of the cliff, it’s all over. But that seems kind of… I don’t know… cynical to me. Maybe that’s how my marriage worked; maybe denial was the glue that held my marriage together, and other people can be married and totally in touch with reality at the same time.
I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. I’m just wondering.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Thanks to our individual frames of reference we do experience some things differently from others.
BUT… the human condition allows for similarities across space and time.
As for the mutual delusion part –
I prefer to think of Eric Berne’s Games People play book as it explains that only with real truth and ending of game playing there will be true intimacy (paraphrasing again.)
Games are part of the things that make some relationships work.
It seems that its the end of the delusion that makes things work well and effectively.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:30 am
That last sentence “blowed” dead bears. Lets try it again shall we?
It seems that if we end the mutual delusions, we will be able to make things work better and more effectively.
ST aka Betty Davis
March 5th, 2010 at 8:10 am
I’m currently teaching Chaucer’s Wife of Bath to students who have to end up in June writing an essay on heroines and anti-heroines. This post and the Advice post yesterday made me laugh in relation to the class discussions we’re having – the books we’ve studied in relation to the topic are all about what makes a good/bad woman/wife/marriage. For 17-18 year olds about to embark on Real Life on their own, it’s pretty big stuff, but fun. They are asking the big questions like what is marriage. If you read the Wife of Bath, it’s letting the woman stay in the driving seat and do pretty much what she wants while her husband sits quietly at home.
I’ve seen various marriages up close and personal – my parents’ marriage which crashed and burnt after 7 years, because they were both crazy people who married much too young (20 and 21). My father’s marriage to my stepmother – deeply dysfunctional, but extremely long-lasting marriage – has lasted 38 years, on the basis that neither asks too many questions or talks too much about anything. This May I’ll have been married 16 years, much to my complete astonishment. I never believed that I’d get married at all and both my husband and I were firm non-believers in marriage. We did the deed because we were living in a situation where if we got married, our combined salary would pretty much double (ahem good old romance had relatively little to do with it).
Although I love a good love story, although I write romances, although I believe in the HEA, I never believed in marriage when I was in my 20s because most marriages seemed destined to fail. We had great family friends who looked as though they’d be married for ever, but one by one, couple after couple split – godmother here, aunt there, university friends of my mother’s.
But here I am, I think possibly happier with the whole marriage thing with each passing year. There are flaws – both my husband and I are tricksy, opinionated people, we have fights and moments when we don’t listen to each other. But by and large, we are suited, not to marriage, but to each other. The fact that we are married is a piece of paper with a lot of legal implications, that ensure for example, that he is covered by my health insurance, but the marriage certificate is a sideline to the main issue, which is our relationship with each other and our relationship with our children. There is also a lot of space. He has accepted long ago that I might be a decent cook and will make sure he never runs out of clean socks and underwear, but otherwise, the house can be falling down around me and I probably won’t notice. I’ve accepted that he is a pretty decent cook and will never be in a conformist office type job situation with a regular income. Neither of us will be able to shower the other with Tiffany diamonds or Mont Blanc pens. What we do have is the ability to poke fun at each other, make each other laugh and provide moral support and encouragement. It doesn’t feel romantic but it feels solid.
Growing up as an only child, going off to boarding school at an early age, leaving my hometown to go as far as I could to university, I was used to being on my own and relying on myself. It has taken me a long time to understand that I’m not on my own, that I have dependents and connections and family. I don’t always like the obligations that brings, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be without it. I think that could be the flipside to the whole business of marriages teetering on the brink.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I’m pretty sure I’m one of those people who should have never gotten married to begin with. Have I written that here before? I think so.
On the other hand, had I not married I probably would not have ever arrived where I am now. I would not have come to Vermont. I would have found a way to raise a baby while attending the San Francisco Art Institute. The writing would have been a part of my past, and stayed there. I probably would have ended up teaching art, because what else is there to do with an art degree? If you want to eat, I mean.
So here I sit, in a marriage that isn’t working. Not for me, not for him – even if he’s not ready to admit it. Our kids are fabulous in spite of us, thank God. So here I sit, but here I sit in Vermont. I love Vermont. It’s what growing up on a cattle ranch in California was to me as a kid. Without the slaughtering of cows, Yay!!
I’m writing. I’m pleased with my writing. And that part of my life makes me happier than I’ve ever been. So even though I probably should have never gotten married, I have to appreciate what that decision has brought me. And I have YEARS of the WILDEST experiences to enhance my stories. A lot of feeling to put in them too. And I know what I want my stories to say. I have a moral. (Not morals, but a moral, the kind you put at the end of stories.)
I don’t regret past decisions, but I have to say there are days I’d chew off my own leg to get out of the situation those decisions got me into. How nutty is that?
March 5th, 2010 at 9:35 am
I was very close to divorce just a couple of years ago – wow, does not seem like it could have been so long ago – and started a new online life separate from my all out, real name, life. The name I chose? JustAnotherCliche. Yep, my life at that point was a complete cliche and you’re right, it is damaging to the ego. I will report that through marriage counseling, work on both our parts, and luck, we have made it through and, at least right now, are happier than ever. Of course, if I’ve learned anything in the last 15 years of marriage is that happy is temporary. So is sad.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:36 am
and I just found my Betty name!
March 5th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Only four comments and there is already an abundance of awesome. Lovely Betties.
I don’t have any answers either, but now Brussel Sprout’s comment is making me think. I’ve said I’m not made for marriage and I believe it. But to my friends, I’ve also said I’d rather find a companion and live in sin for the next 30 years than make it official. So now I’m questioning if I know anything at all. What’s the difference between being in a marriage and being in a relationship? Logically nothing, right?
There something very disconcerting about being a control freak and realizing you’re totally conflicted about something. And I know I’m babbling and getting no where, so I’m going to stop now.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:56 am
LOL Heidi — love it.
I’m pretty sure mine’s original: I walked by his computer to see a photo of my butt on the middle of this website (we’d taken the photo via Polaroid in 1999 after a new tattoo on my hip). I stopped and said: What’s that??? Why is THAT photo in the middle of THAT website?
He answered: I thought we could start swinging and sleeping with other people, while, of course, we’re still in the same room, together. Something new for us to do TOGETHER.
I replied: You lost the right to EVER touch me again.
Then we co-existed in a house for four years after that — TOGETHER, on opposite ends until we figured out who was going where. I’ve figured mine out — he hasn’t quite yet. Guess it sucks to be him, huh?
March 5th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Of course it feels different, it’s happening for the first time to you, and not to someone else. And even if it’s the same pattern, you haven’t seen it from the inside before. It’s great that you have Dr. Susan and the books to help you remember that you aren’t alone… and us of course.
I think it’s about foundations. If the marriage is based on mutual understanding of each other and what you want, at least the foundation is strong and maybe it will be harder for the whole structure to fall, but if the foundation is weak because the relationship is based on games or anyother form of half truth, it seems like it would be harder for the whole thing not to crumble eventually. But, I’ve never been married, so it’s all theory for me.
I’m thankful for all the stories people have shared here. There is so much hope and beauty in each of them.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Terrio said:
There’s a huge difference. You can just up and walk away from a relationship at any time. That said, if you’re going to stick anyway, you get benefits from marriage – some tax breaks, and all the next-of-kin type stuff. So there’s that.
But don’t worry about being conflicted. My feeling on it is this; I’m bad at it. Maybe I’m bad at intimacy, maybe that’s my problem, I don’t know. But I like my life to be mine, I like my bed to be mine, and I like my space to be mine. I think that precludes me from sharing it with someone else wholly. I think I could have a relationship, maybe, in the way future, but really? I like my life. My focus is my work and my kids and right now, that makes me happy. If something is missing later, then I’ll worry about that then. But I realize that I don’t have t make any decisions right now about anything; it’s not like there’s anyone in my life harranguing me with rings and promises. So, since no one’s asking, I don’t have to answer, and that’s fine by me.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:09 am
My husband and I were talking about this very topic only a couple weeks back. We’ve been together for fifteen and a half years now, married for twelve and a half of them. Our relationship is very much what Brussel Sprouts described: friendship and accommodation of what each does well and what each does not at all. We were talking about the abundance around us of our friends whose marriages are splitting. It makes me leery because I’d so hate to lose him but all around us marriages are crumbling. Marriages you’d never in a million years think would fail, are failing.
The only thing we could grab onto as a crutch to keep our idealism about our own firmly in hand was to thank our own parents for demonstrating good marriages for us. Both our folks were together for the long haul (so far for mine, anyway, at forty-one years now. His dad died last year.) We both saw marriages with problems, sometimes loud, screaming problems, and we saw them worked out, in a variety of ways.
Then again, I also know women who had horrible marriages demonstrated to them who took that as what NOT to do and therefore now have decades of pretty good marriages for themselves. So who knows?
I think marriage is a matter of real honesty and acceptance of things we don’t like or don’t understand about our partners. Because there are things I don’t like or understand about mine. And he about me, I’m very sure. He has more value to me inside this relationship than out of it. And so do I. If I were to lose my own value because of the marriage, well, that’s where the problems begin to look super-scary.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Reading this reminded me of when we read A Doll’s House and actually discussed divorced. Now, this was a class of 13 or so girls at a Catholic school with a teacher who was divorced. I hadn’t seen a lot of divorces growing up at that point (knew maybe 5 families but they were all cases where there were visible problems–violence, affairs, etc) and this concept that a marriage needed to break up when it became clear that one of the partners didn’t see the other as a real adult…was absolutely shocking to me. I didn’t know those things happened.
I think more teenagers need to read that play.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:38 am
I love reading the conversations that are generated by these posts, particularly this one. Sure Thing, Brussel Sprout and Bodacious Betty have added deep stuff to your own deep stuff, Lucy.
My mind’s eye saw the image of off the edge of the precipice and looking down as the Fool card. The Fool is fine as long as he is unaware, but we cannot travel our whole journey as the Fool. And it sounds that you have moved on from the Tower, too? I wonder on to which card you have landed now? This is also part of the Library of Many Shared Journeys.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Beki- I think you have a good point there. When the marriage (or relationship) adds value, when you feel like you are more in it than out, then it’s good, and should be enjoyed and appreciated as much as possible. The problem is when it makes you feel smaller, less than you were before. It took me far too long to realize that was happening with one person I was dating, but when I did realize it, I knew that relationship had to end. The patterns were too set by then to fix, and I couldn’t stay and watch myself dwindle away.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Terrio, I think for some people the difference between being married and being in a relationship is the illusion of freedom. The illusion that if you’ve been living with someone, you have a life, and, if not a family then at least a couch you picked out together but you’re not married that you can pick up and walk away with no problem.
Which, as we all know, is one of the great lies of the universe.
Some people need that illusion. Some people don’t. It’s not a judgment, it’s just human nature. We do love our illusions.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Thanks for answering the question, Lucy & Geri. Now that I’ve thought about it a bit, my problem is really the fear of another divorce. I didn’t even like my ex, but that divorce was still hell. I think I’m afraid if I had to go through it again with someone I actually was in love with, I’d never make it. (I would, but I don’t want to try it.)
The flaw is in the idea that a break up without the word divorce involved would be easier.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:20 am
As usual, the comments from all the Betties are as thought provoking as Lucy’s original post. You know the bit about spouse’s redistributing responsibilities in the 70′s and how the husbands reacted?! My parents did that. Several times. Worked out just like Nora Ephron and Lucy said. Now that I’m the mom, I look at my life (in those rare moments other than when I’m very carefully not examining my life) and think, “How the hell did I become this horrible cliche?”
I am not a fan of therapists, likely because the majority of my experience with them (dozens of them) occurred before my 18th birthday. My parents were a mess, so I was sent to therapy, encouraged to talk about my feelings (duh, it sucked) given a bunch of puppets and touchy-feely charts, a few pat “tools” to help me be a “healthy individual” and then shoved back into the same sucky situation-one that I had absolutely no control over. I have to admit it colored my view of the process (still does). My husband and I attempted counseling once (before we married). The therapist told me that I was a “crazy-maker”. I said, “So teach me how to communicate more constructively” and he said that I must know how to already do that and I responded that no, no I didn’t because I’d never witnessed a healthy marriage. He didn’t believe me. Remembering this now, it’s easy to see how I find myself here, all cliche-y. Argh.
I do think that being in a relationship is very different from being married. My husband swore that it was only a piece of paper and then called me “Wife” for months after we wed, because the sense of “belonging” to someone, and feeling that they belong to you is, at least for us, HUGE.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:26 am
I’m in the Brussel Sprout and Bouncing Betty camp on this one. I’ve been with my husband for 20 years, married for 15 and I can’t imagine life without him.
It was never supposed to be that way. When I was 17 and graduating high school, my mother asked me what I planned to do with the rest of my life. I responded that I intended to get my journalism degree, move to a city, and live in an apartment while carrying on a string of meaningless, sex-based relationships. She gave me a Dee’s-trying-to-shock-me-again eyeroll and shook her head and went on her way. Only thing is, I wasn’t kidding. I wanted that. It was the opposite of everything I’d ever been exposed to, and I wanted it bad.
Three months later, I met the man who is now my husband. He was not my first boyfriend, nor was he the most handsome or articulate. Hell, he wasn’t even the first to propose marriage — which is terribly scary, now that I think about it. But I found it easy to be with him. It was easy to be honest and open and myself. And it was easy for him to do the same. We met too young, got married too young, and did some stupid things on each other’s account. But never once in the past 20 years did I think I’d done the wrong thing by sticking with him. He’s my best friend and still the person I choose over anyone.
All of which is to say that I think it really depends on the two people. If you can be honest and open with each other without having to sit down and say, “Okay, it’s time we be honest and open with each other,” then I think a marriage can make it. It’s when you feel you have to pretend or suppress any part of you that you’re doomed. I could never survive in that type of relationship, “marriage material” or not. I’m not good at suppressing myself. The trick is in finding someone who would never ask you to do it.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:29 am
This topic reminds me of a fabulous article in the onion. It’s about symbiotic relationships. This is from back on, Sept 22nd 2007, it’s a long link, so cut and paste and I hope it works. : )
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/rhino_tickbird_stuck_in_dead_end
March 5th, 2010 at 11:58 am
I think the moment I realized I could spend my life with my husband (ten years now…) was when I realized that he loved me for all my qualities, even the ones I hesitate to share with most people. He doesn’t just tolerate that I’m a pushy broad, he admires & encourages it. He knows my faults, but pays attention to the good parts. I also feel like living with him has taught me to be a better person – in a very good way. I don’t snap or take out moods on him, because he doesn’t & wouldn’t. I don’t say things I’ll later regret, because he doesn’t. Some of it is not wanting to lose that high ground, but a lot of it is realizing how lovely it is to live with that person. I come from a family with a lot of divorce, he doesn’t, and we both clearly learned from our examples. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for things to get harder, and more of a struggle for 10 years…so far we’ve made it through some trying times, and kept that kindness for each other.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
WARNING: Pathos and crap ahead.
I hate delving into those deep dark places and splattering them all over for everyone to see but I for some reason this damn blog keeps bringing me to places where I need to say something, so here goes…
Lucy said,
“Maybe I’m bad at intimacy, maybe that’s my problem, I don’t know. But I like my life to be mine, I like my bed to be mine, and I like my space to be mine. I think that precludes me from sharing it with someone else wholly.”
As a parentified child and victim of violence I see that as normal. I mean really, if you’ve never been able to rely on the significant people in your life to fulfill their proper roles then you never learn that you CAN rely on them and you never become comfortable relying on them. I, personally, cannot delegate because I don’t trust that anyone else will do the job right enough that my (insert personal bogeyman here) won’t come and punish ME because it isn’t right and it was MY responsibility to make it right, gosh darn it. I can’t answer the door without panicking; I apologize for everything that anyone does wrong because somehow, somewhere, it was my fault/responsibility. If you extrapolate those behaviors from a filial relationship and apply them to a marital one… well, you can see the problems. We subconsciously believe we have to control all situations or we’ll end up suffering for it. Then we get OTHER trouble because our controlling behavior is insulting to our partner because it shows that no matter how much we love them, we don’t trust them.
In most of our cultural shorthand there are still these ideas of “wifely duties.” They range from cooking and cleaning and raising children, to staying thin and pretty and show-off-able, to providing sex to your husband whenever he’s interested regardless of your personal interest level. Everyone has their own idea of what makes a “bad wife.” The idea of what makes a good/bad girlfriend is totally different. I have a dear friend who is very liberal, and very intelligent—wonderful guy—and when he married he went from doing his share of the housework and being supportive of his S/O to doing NONE of the housework because, subconsciously, that was his new wife’s job. It took him a while (and a few kicks in the ass) to see what he was doing, but he’d fallen into the “wifely duties” brainwashing like so many others. Taking on new obligations, finding a partner who shares your views of what is expected between two partners, finding a balance between your single person identity and your married identity (and it’s hard on both sides, no doubt)… well it’s a minefield of possible hurts that can seem impossible to navigate at the best of times. If you can’t make yourself trust that your partner is going to be *right* where you need them, and do *exactly* what they’re supposed to do—and I’m talking about making yourself trust someone who is trustworthy—well, it can convince you that it doesn’t just seem impossible, but that you’re definitely going to get blown up by one of those mines because THEY are going to screw up and that’s going to be YOUR fault because you should never have trusted them in the first place.
I know it’s screwy, but that’s the way the thought processes go sometimes.
So, instead, you stay separate and safe. If there are responsibilities then they are YOUR responsibilities and if you get blown up by a land mine it was your own damn mistake that got you there. There’s no sense of betrayal because you don’t trust someone enough to betray you. There’s no sense of being taken advantage of, because you’ve not given them the right of expectation. There is no intimacy (and I’m not talking physical intimacy—you can do THAT all you want because sex is just a *thing*) and because no one can get close enough, no one can stick a stiletto through your ribs just when you think you’ve finally found someone you can count on.
I can’t count the number of times that I was a total shit to my husband because I was subconsciously trying to push him to that point where he’d break and leave just like everyone else. Luckily, I found one stubborn SOB who’d been through some yuck of his own and knew where I was coming from even when I didn’t.
I think one has to unconditionally trust to have a successful marriage, and I think that one has to have a strong sense of self-identity and worth to maintain identity within a marriage. Those are things that have to be learned before about 7 years of age—studies have been done that if a child has enough positive reinforcement of their self-image and worth by the time they’re 6 then they will have a strong sense of those things for the rest of their lives. Parentified children learn that others aren’t to be relied upon, and rarely get personal value reinforcement so they are forever tentatively picking through the minefield of life expecting something to go *BOOM* and when it does they pick themselves up, promise to remove the bloodstains, clean up the mess, and apologize to anyone around, because you know, they shouldn’t have tried to do that in the first place, and gosh they’re sorry for the trouble.
Crap—that was long and depressing and I apologize to all who lost brain cells in the reading of it.
See? I apologized.
Dammit.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Darth Betty, that was brilliant. Also this, from Dee “If you can be honest and open with each other without having to sit down and say, “Okay, it’s time we be honest and open with each other,” then I think a marriage can make it. It’s when you feel you have to pretend or suppress any part of you that you’re doomed.”
This is fascinating. I don’t have anything insightful to add, just nodding to what others have said. Smart bunch here.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Darth – you’re genius. Don’t ever stifle yourself, or apologize. There are a lot of great insights there, and I think you’re right – there’s no small amount of self-protection in my protestations. But, for now, like I said – no one’s asking, and I’m not looking, so there’s no need for me to see things any other way for the moment.
But still… good points, all.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
You know, it seems to me that anyone who didn’t read that is entirely capable of scrolling right on past it. And if someone didn’t want to read it, read it anyway, well, I have no pity.
I’m also one of the parentified children who still, on some level, thinks everything is her fault. Everything. 9/11? Totally on me. The financial meltdown? Me, too.
I tell people that, and they think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
The thing is, that’s only one level. I’m working on strengthening the levels that know what a crock that is. That ‘no pity’ thing up above? That’s from one of the not-owning-it-if-it-ain’t-truly-mine layers.
Marriage? Marriage is hard. It gets harder when one’s hormones decide one is 15 again and it’s time for the roller coaster again. ::sigh::
March 5th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I meant to say, “that anyone who didn’t want to read that”…
::new sigh::
March 5th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Katy–doesn’t it make you crazy (almost angry?) when someone questions your feeling that it’s all your fault? It makes me NUTS. Come on, people! Can’t you see that it’s all my fault? Really? It’s been 15 years and I still wake up in a cold sweat because my grandfather died because I went to visit him in the hospital (He was 83.*eye roll*) and you want to tell me it’s not my fault? Yeah right.
*shakes head*
And then I write it all down and put it out here and a voice in my head says, “Um… Darth? I think you’ve got a problem here.” and ANOTHER voice says, “I know! I’m so sorry… I’m *trying* to fix it. I promise.”
*headdesk*
What a day.*
Darth Betty
p.s. Today I love asterisks. What do you love?
March 5th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Today I love Darth Betty.
I just learned something major from your comment. Until the age of 8, I was the golden child. In pageants, waving from the convertible in parades, over 50 trophies and a few Princess of… titles. Then between 9 and 11 I lost all front teeth at the same time and gained 30lbs (more or less, not sure.)
I don’t have the “everything is my fault” thing, but I do have the parentified part where I can’t rely on or trust anyone else to take care of things. I can’t bring myself to delegate. Planned a chapter conference and did most everything. Thankfully, I had a co-planner that knew how to let me do my thing and how to keep me sane.
Planned my own wedding totally alone. Plan all my company functions including the annual holiday party alone. “By committee” is not in my vocabulary.
Now I know why I have the one and not the other. THANKS!
March 5th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Darth Betty, I love dashes and parentheses, strong coffee, the kid digging her very strong fingers into the kinks in my neck and–(see I told you I love dashes and parentheses)–your insights. You don’t need to apologize for anything and trust me–pun intended–I understand why you did. With apologies (eek, now I’m doing it) to the late Erich Segal, Being a Betty means never having to say you’re sorry.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I don’t know how to do the fancy quote thing, but I soooo love this:
the only thing worse than being a hackneyed cliche is being so out there nutso that nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about.
It’s much easier being nutso when you know you’re in good company.
Tawna
March 5th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
It’s really hard to re-learn how to live, because we keep re-living our past. Mom or Dad disappointed me so when I grow up I search out for people who will likely disappoint me. So that I can keep right on believing everyone will disappoint me eventually. If not, then I do it first in a counter-move. Like a pig who loves muck I roll around in the guilt of it all and am able to say “see everyone will disappoint somebody.”
So, Darth, you rationale isn’t that different from mine. It has a different name, but it’s the same process–all to get to an end point that re-affirms whatever skewed belief.
Yup, we’re all cliched. It’s so hard to be an original, because *gasp* what if someone actually likes that person then we’d have to stop believing that horrible truth and then what? We know that end result, that process so well it becomes comforting in it’s insanity.
Can you tell I’m absolutely frustrated with my skewed belief?
So to make this on topic… I don’t think marriage is the problem. I think it’s just easier to see the problem or the result of the skewed belief, because the marriage fails *in a public way*. To me, it’s kind of like saying I don’t buy microwaves because they can explode. No, intentionally or unintentionally me or the other person put something in there that made it explode.
Now exploring the why is interesting. You wouldn’t put a laptop in a microwave and not expect something bad to happen. So why do we drag our baggage and hope or ignore that it won’t somehow hurt/end the marriage? Does it go back to the self-fulfilling prophecy or something much deeper?
March 5th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Amen, Tawna!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
@ Who Gives a Betty–You asked, “Why do we drag our baggage and hope or ignore that it won’t somehow hurt/end the marriage?” and I think, simply enough, it’s because we don’t realize we’re doing it WHEN we’re doing it. I say I have a broken receiver. Someone says, “I’m not happy,” and I hear, “You’re making me unhappy.” Someone says, “I don’t like chicken,” and I hear, “You’re a bad cook,” or worse “You did this on purpose to make me suffer.”
I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying.
This happens often enough that I’m sure it’s its own cliché. Hell, part of it probably even inspired the whole Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus stuff. What I want to know is how many of those women in the 70’s who divided the chores were speaking at those same damaged cross-purposes? How many of us say, “I need your help with the housework,” but don’t realize that we have spouses who’ve never done housework and think we mean help with this ONE chore this ONE time, because it never occurs to them that “doing laundry” is never actually *done* and there is no such thing as a “clean working kitchen.”
Language—can’t be strictly objective with it; can’t curse until you’re blue in the face without it.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Reading these, I’m bouncing between “Oh, My God!” and “Thank God”. Right now, all I know for sure is that I LOVE EVERYBETTY! You are all insightful and wonderful and always make me feel more human and less flawed.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Oh Darth Betty – TRUST, not just in marriage but in many areas of life. If one cannot trust, it colours every relationship. So very well said. I read it all and will read it again. Nuggets of truth. Don’t apologize.
AND I have a spouse who rarely does housework and thinks it is only this one thing. He is slowly coming around – thankfully our sons are not like their father. They help with everything and can do everything, excellent cooks. I digress…..he is an only child whose mother placed him on a pedastal and got very angry with me that I had the audacity to *allow* him to wash the kitchen floor and take a photo of it. Or when on holidays, he helped our neighbour do the dishes, (again a photo, why, because that is what you do on holidays, take photos of everything!) It is very difficult to change a mind set. When it changes, the mother will still question why he has to help out. BECAUSE – that’s WHY!!! I work, he works, there is a lot of work which gets done quickly, when we all work at it. Then we can go play!!
Oh yes, language, spot on there too. Much wisdom from your keyboard today. Underneath the black *darth vader* cloak is a very wise and beautiful woman, I hope you see her.
** Some days, I say “I am not going to be mouthy today, I will let others just talk”……nope, this blog and Jenny’s blog just have the best people, we can share, encourage, apologize, laugh, cry, agree to disagree, agree, nod our heads in unison, roll our eyes, shake our heads in disbelief and know that there are others out there going through the same or have been through the same and just feel free to say what is on our minds. The guys too. Well done, cheers good people.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
[quoting without bothering to learn how to do it right]… marriage only works under the strict adherence to mutual delusion…[end same]
Maybe marriage only works under the strict adherence to the same story. If you are both telling the same story, it works.
I mean, antagonists and protagonists are telling opposite stories about the same events, right? So would this make sense?
And yes, I learn about relationships from stories in books, too. That’s why I’m here, ya’ll.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Beloved Boyfriend–hell, it only took me 40+ years to find him–and I were talking about relationships just the other night. We have several theories about what works:
1. You and your partner’s crazies mesh.
2. You make each other laugh and enjoy having sex–often at the same time.
3. Honesty and open communication at all times.
Of the three, it’s the last one that seems to be the charm. We’re honest without thinking about it.
However, like so many things in life, it’s something that we had to realize on our own. It’s like being told that exercise is good, or quitting smoking; until you’re ready to do it, it doesn’t register.
Again and again, I am humbled by the Betties. Their generosity in sharing their lives, and their humor. Thank you all.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I think denial is a pretty powerful force, but so is kindness, and patience, and forgiveness. My marriage isn’t perfect, but we learned early on to be patient with one another, to help one another where we could, and to assume benevolence first. It’s amazing how much that helps, that simple assumption that wherever the other person is coming from, it’s from a loving place.
There’s some saying that goes, every happy marriage is happy in the same way, but every unhappy marriage is unique. I think that’s backward. I think happy marriages have one big thing in common: sheer good luck. It wasn’t like I went looking for the guy who I could be married to–it wasn’t like I knew him when I met him. It was sheer dumb luck, like it’s sheer dumb luck that other friends of mine are divorcing their husbands now because they’re unhappy being married.
It’s all a crap shoot. All you can do is try to be kind to the person you’re married to.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:52 am
We do things because our parents did and DON’T do other things because our parents did. My parents were married at 15 & 20 with me on the way…talk about a train wreck waiting to happen. It happened 7 years and 4 kids later. My mother’s second marriage was and is a horror; alcoholism (both of them) wife beating and the list goes on and on. I’m happy to live far, far, away!
I had all the reasons in the world to never get married and surely wasn’t looking for it when I met my husband. We were just “right”. I don’t know why, or why either of us thought we were in love and should get married after 8 days of knowing each other, BUT we got engaged and 2 months later got married. We celebrate our 31st anniversary next Wednesday. We just “get” each other. Neither of us is perfect, we both have faults, there are things we each do that makes the other nuts, but in the big scheme of things we can’t imagine being without the other. Though we both have those days where you think to yourself, “Don’t you have somewhere to be for the next week”? I don’t know why, other than we do talk, (me, more) and we don’t fight a lot, but always try to fight fair and remember that you can’t take something back once you say it. I think that comes from listening to my parents (mostly mom/stepdad) and the hideous things they said to each other.
Whether someone is built for marriage or not is a very personal thing. I think underlying issues from childhood play a very large part, but I also think sometimes, you just get lucky, the stars align or whatever…or maybe if your childhood issues are similar (ours are) it makes it easier to handle the neurotic, controlling, weirdness we each have.
Thank you Betties for sharing
March 6th, 2010 at 3:37 am
My maid of honor quoted Khalil Gibran at my wedding — all I remembered was the last bit about “For the pillars of the temple stand apart/ And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
And I thought to myself, “What kind of crazy BS is this? I want a Soul Mate. I want someone to take care of me (like my father should have) and make me feel loved and whole and complete. Stand apart??? Why should I get married, then?”
Well, needless to say, my husband and I had a few rocky years at the beginning of our marriage. He’s not my Soul Mate. But then I slowly started figuring out the value of standing apart, yet connecting through the roots. He was so much happier when I started taking up my own interests and not depending on him to complete my happiness.
(-: So, maybe right now we are working with mutual delusion. But, for us right now, it works. He gives me a lot more freedom than I feel right taking (although he does get grumpy about things once in awhile), and I hope I’m giving him the same. I don’t know how the relationship will change once our children grow up, but I figure I’ll take that when it comes.
Oh, and I wanted to say another thing. I don’t think marriage can survive just on passion. There’s something else that’s necessary — something that makes many arranged marriages click, something that keeps a “love match” going through the years. I suppose it must be some sort of mutual respect, some sort of mutual safety net, maybe? Or perhaps it’s just the mutual investment, and looking at it too hard, tallying the totals of who did what, can make it look like a crap investment?
Final thing: Just read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed.” It’s supposed to be about marriage, but it seems to be more about coming to terms with divorce. I thought it was a really good read, as good or possibly even better than “Eat, Pray, Love.” I’d like to pass it on to a friend who just got divorced and is dealing with the aftermath, but I’m a little afraid it might be too early. Any Betty Opinion about this book?
Micki
March 6th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
and I think, simply enough, it’s because we don’t realize we’re doing it WHEN we’re doing it.
You may be right. And I’m sure there are a million reasons we tell ourselves.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
I know Darth Betty personally, and she may have problems with trust … but I trust HER implicitly. She has always been there for me. Her husband, being wise in the force, loves and adores her. Her children are well cared for and well behaved. To top it all, she is a good cook and her IQ weighs more than I do. With all that, she still cannot see she is wise and wonderful. It makes me wonder, if you don’t get enough hugs as a kid, do you ever see yourself for what you really are? Excuse me while I go hug the living daylights out of my three daughters (and their friend for good measure) and remind them that if a man doesn’t value them enough to do his share of the chores, he does not deserve to bask in their awesomeness every day. Darth Betty’s hubby knows he is a lucky man to have her, and thus he may continue to bask in her glory. Maybe that is the real secret of a happy marriage? When you appreciate your S/O, and they appreciate you? The mutual respect Blue Velvet Betty mentions? My parents have been together 40 years and that seems to be what keeps them united … well that and kinky nooky.
I wonder how many Bettys read Darth Betty’s post and didn’t realize that they are also as wonderful as they are wounded?