A Happy Marriage is an Oxymoron
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I was 18 years old when I got married.
I had literally no idea about what a marriage would look like in one month from then, one year, or ten years. I didn’t know what to expect from this guy I decided should be my life partner.
What I did know was that I wanted an apartment, needed a roommate and this seemed like a viable option.
My husband was stupid enough to say yes to my proposal. It was the blind leading the blind in every aspect.
I remember the shock of living with this person that was not my family member.
Why did he want food I had never eaten, put dirty pans in the oven, or leave toothpaste splattered on the sink?
What kind of weirdo did I hook myself too anyway?
That was 3 kids and 29 years ago.
Now people ask me the secret to having a long relationship.
I’ve answered several ways over the years. My latest advice has been to tell people not too marry an asshole and don’t let your future spouse marry an asshole either. Problem solved. I still stand behind this advice, it’s solid.
After contemplation, I think it needs some filling out.
I do think marrying so young helped us in many ways. We both had very low expectations. We weren’t old enough to have notions of a perfect partner or life.
Maybe that says something about our family of origins but neither of us thought it was going to be all roses and captain crunch on Sunday mornings.
Can I digress for a minute, I had never eaten captain crunch before marrying my husband. Realizing I could eat whatever I wanted, sugar laden cereal for dinner included, was heady stuff. This might of helped our marital happiness right off the bat.
The first few years were pretty great.
We were two teenagers with absolute freedom, outside of our jobs. We started dating as friends, became best friends, and we were still best friends.
We would get stoned, drive to the store and buy licorice and chocolate bars. On a Tuesday. At midnight.
Our first child came along when I was 21 and my husband was 22.
This definitely put a damper on our fun.
Our oldest was trial by fire and I had had a hard pregnancy, having been on bedrest the final months and delivering a month early.
But again, we were too stupid to know anything else or to realize we had any other choice but to muddle through those early years, together.
We added a second child a month before she turned 3.
When I look back now, I can see wide swaths of time when neither of us liked the other one.
We’ve never been spiteful or hurtful to each other and we’ve never argued much but we for sure didn’t like each other for a lot of weeks or even months put together.
Then like some sort of switch, we would realize how much the other person meant to us, declare our undying love, and we both would realize we couldn’t possibly live without the other.
I remember distinctly thinking during one of these light switches, I should remember this for when the time came that I didn’t like him much anymore. It came in handy because it did come around again.
I can’t really count the times this has happened over the last 29 years, maybe a handful of times it has extended into months.
We once had a disagreement about something, one in which neither of us would give in, for around 3 months. We didn’t argue about it, we both just would not budge.
Spoiler alert, my husband blinked first, I won that particular point of contention. I’ve since broken him, he knows if I am going to dig in my heels, it’s pointless to try and out last me.
Our youngest is now turning 15 years old.
A few years ago we had to reinvent our marriage. After raising children for most of our adult lives, we were finding out that an empty nest was right around the corner.
We had to see if we still liked each other and wanted to spend time together.
We had finally realized that we don’t actually have to live together until death do us part.
Lucky for us, it came back to remembering what it was like when we first started dating.
We were friends first. We were and still are best friends.
We have the most amazing time together.
I want the best for him and he wants the best for me.
We’ve been through chronic illness and money problems, screaming children and death of close family members. Coming out stronger on the other side.
We have seen each other at our worst and love each other not in spite of it but because of it.
So cliche it’s sort of gross, but it’s the truth.
I thought I came up with the saying a happy marriage is an oxymoron. Although I also thought I came up with Hershey kisses on top of peanut butter cookies.
Turns out I was wrong on both accounts.
Who knows how many other things I haven’t come up with as original thought, I try not to dig too deep.
Back to the oxymoron.
I read that there was a backlash about that saying, that of course that’s false.
Things like — I’ve been happily married for 20 years or 60 years.
Yeah, right, I call bull shit.
I don’t trust anybody that has been together for any length of time and says they haven’t had homicidal thoughts about their partner.
I love my husband deeply. We have more fun than most couples we know, and are deeply committed to our family and marriage.
But there have been days, weeks, and months when it wasn’t such a good time. When we didn’t particularly like our spouse but powered through anyway.
Because we are truly friends, because of our commitment to our family.
Marriage is so much more than “happy”.
Lots of things make me happy.
Every morning, happy doesn’t begin to describe my feeling of drinking the first cup of coffee.
Watching my cat yawn makes me ridiculously happy (why is that? Cats are spiteful creatures and yet I’m happy when it’s thinking about taking another nap).
Waking up next to my best friend every morning? Happy isn’t what comes to mind. Deep contentment, a sense of belonging, a lifetime of memories, knowing there is someone on this earth who would move mountains for me, seeing my children in his eyes. Happy? That’s for cat yawning.
I stand by my statement that a happy marriage is an oxymoron. It’s an oxymoron because marriage isn’t built on happy. If it was built on happy it would crumble at the first wind of hardship.
I also stand by the asshole thing.
