I’ve been meaning, since I restored this older version, to do an update/catch-up, just hit on the main points of the last 6 or so months, but of course, life always derails us.
First it was a big winter storm, a Snowpocalypse/Snowmageddon event of the sort that brings Seattle to a grinding halt every time we have such a thing. It’s difficult to focus on putting together a halfway interesting timeline when you are trying to figure out when the snow is actually going to begin falling – something that all the meteorologists in the entire city cannot seem to do.
And then in the midst of a flurry of flakes, and over the course of just a day or so, a good number of marriages of people that I know or are acquainted with just fell apart. Well, that’ll certainly make you think. It’s upsetting enough to hear about the demise of someone’s (anyone’s!) marriage, even if you don’t know them well. It’s definitely worse to feel like half the world is on the verge of divorce.
All marriages have their ups and downs. Being married can be easy – if you work at it. Which is not to say that just because things aren’t working out in a relationship that the parties involved weren’t making an effort. That’s where things get REALLY upsetting, when you see a couple, THE COUPLE, the one that always seemed like they had the best, most perfect, completely unbreakable partnership breaking apart.
I’m talking about the people who are attractive and talented and creative, they not only look good individually, but they look GREAT together, and they work well together. The compliment each other and complement each other. They are always nice to each other, and they have great jobs, beautiful families, awesome houses and go on fantastic vacations. They are successful and happy. In short, the kind of people we all wish we were.
Until…they tell you that things really AREN’T that great, and all that unbelievable superglue of goodness in their lives couldn’t hold them together.
It’s hard for me to imagine: if everything in your life otherwise is right, how can your marriage go wrong? Assuming – as is the case here – that no one really DID anything wrong. There was no instances of infidelity, no drug or alcohol abuse, no gambling addiction. In every relationship I’ve ever had, there were always problems with the RELATIONSHIP. If it wasn’t an instance of someone doing something wrong – lying, cheating, etc. – it was because life just sucked. You know, because you really DIDN’T have enough money in your bank account to buy something extravagant, but someone DID anyway. Or because you’re so broke that a box of wine is the extravagant thing, and when your SO bought it, your bank account went from having $9 to having -$3. And so you fight. And fight. And fight and fight, fight fight, fight. And you spend every day thinking that, if only you could just get ahead, if only you just had enough money, if only life just wasn’t so hard – if only you were a perfect, beautiful, creative, talented successful couple with plenty of money and a beautiful house and you could just go on a fucking vacation…Everything would be okay, and you’d be together, HAPPILY, forever.
I don’t know if things in any of MY past relationships would have been different if the circumstances of our lives had been different. I doubt it. Maybe some of those relationships would have fared better, lasted longer, been more pleasant while they lasted, but…I just don’t think so.
My life with my husband is by no means perfect. We never seem to be as financially well-off as we’d like to be. Our house isn’t fancy. But admittedly, we’re doing better all across the board in all the categories in which my former relationships suffered. But I also know that things that seem like they should make everything even better (a vacation, for example) don’t necessarily, and can, in fact, even be detrimental, if things don’t go well, even if they should have gone well, and they didn’t go well for no real reason. Perhaps it’s doing something outside of your everyday life that you have a high expectation for. Or maybe it’s just not having enough of an appreciation for your everyday life.
When you start to wonder where someone else went so wrong – because you certainly don’t want to make the same mistakes – but you have no way of knowing how, you start to look for examples of where things have gone right. I happened to coincidentally come across a blog (by someone’s recommendation) that at first seemed – to me – like it would be a good place to find just such a thing. I was drawn in by the romance of it, and the pretty photos, but I only got a few posts into it before I realized that there was no way I could relate to the author.
It was at that moment that I realized that you can’t get the answers from anyone else. We are all so different, what works for one set of people isn’t necessarily going to work for another, and that you have to figure out what your own rules are, and what things you have to do every day to make your life what you want it to be.
The person in question had written a couple of posts (and I’m guessing there were more) relating their tips for a good marriage. Now, certainly, there were some good points in there, among the ones that I simply am not down with. It’s not that there wasn’t value there, but those people aren’t my husband and I, because if I had been writing that post, my #1 tip would have been: HAVE FUN TOGETHER. And theirs…wasn’t.
I may not be able to figure out, or at least accurately explain what it is about us that works, but I do know that the fact that we have fun together – and always have – works. When I met my husband, I wasn’t interested in him in THAT way. He was just another one of the guys. I liked hanging out with him, we always had a good time, but I didn’t have the kinds of lustful thoughts about him that I usually have about someone I end up dating. I didn’t pursue him at all. He pursued me. Which is not to say I have never been pursued, but in a good number of cases in which a man was clearly attracted to me, I still had to make an effort to make things happen. And when my husband pursued me, he did in a way that was so genuine and sweet, that I didn’t even realize that he was doing that, as I had never experienced it before.
I guess what I am getting at is that I didn’t begin dating my husband for the reasons I usually did – “Oh hey, look, hot guy, I better go out with him!” or whatever. After I realized that he was interested in me THAT way, I was hesitant. I mean, I hadn’t had any lustful thoughts about the guy, after all (which is funny, I really did not realize how handsome he was because he had all this long hair and a beard that all the handsome was hiding behind), and I’d been hurt enough times, I had gotten to the point where I thought I was done. And he was young, and you know, I’d kind of decided that I just wasn’t doing this shit anymore unless, you know, Johnny Depp came riding up on a fucking white horse and literally swept me off my feet.
When I gave it some thought, though, I realized that I did like him – AS A PERSON. I liked hanging out with him, and we had a good time when we did. Also – OMG, I already actually sort of KNEW him. I wouldn’t be dating someone I had just met yesterday for five minutes in a bar, just long enough to exchange phone numbers and agree to go on a date. But what really still works is that one thing – that we had fun together. We did before we started dating, we did when we first started dating, we did after we moved in together, and after we got married, and still do now.
Sure we’ve had our arguments and fights, even. There have been a few times when one of us stormed off or slept on the couch or whatever. We’ve had a rough patch here or there that I was afraid we’d never get past. But for the most part, when we woke up and one of us was on the couch, in the light of day, whatever it was seemed silly, and then we’d go out to breakfast and – have a good time together. And after months of arguing about pretty much the same thing over and over again, one really good genuine talk finally did the trick, and then? We went right back to having fun again.
While everybody else this week has been busy bitching about inaccurate weather reports, and snow that was never going to fall, we were like kids building our blanket fort for the weekend sleepover, and while everyone else was complaining about the inconvenience of getting around in the snow, we were out walking around in it and shoving each other down in it. While everyone else was going stir crazy from being stuck in the house, we were cozied up on the couch under a blanket watching movies.
It seems like their should be a better way to describe it, and there’s certainly more to it than just “We have fun together”, but clearly that is an important aspect. There’s also a lot to be said for putting up with each others quirks, and having good perspective, and appreciating what’s good, rather than focusing on what isn’t.
Hearing that what I had always seen as the “perfect couple” were having trouble, really threw me for a loop. It actually scared the SHIT out of me. Because if they can’t do it, how can we? I don’t know. All I do know is that it’s still working over here, and even a cynic like me can have hope when it’s as important as this.
