Married Life

Is ‘Happily Married’ Unfashionable?

I just stumbled across this wonderful article by Aaron Traister: It’s hot! It’s sexy! It’s… marriage!

Traister writes:

My wife and I have been married anywhere from seven to 150 years (I’m not good with dates). During those years we have moved six times, and each move was like an exotic gift that happened to be covered in shit. We have each had multiple jobs, and multiple uniforms with name tags. We’ve been broke, we’ve been well off, we’ve been broke again. We’ve bought our first house together, and it has a giant hole in the kitchen ceiling and sparks come out of the third-floor outlets if you hold anything metal too close to them. We have fought, raged, nearly cheated, and been totally out of sync with each other during chunks of our time together. We’ve also produced two enormous redheaded babies who are as terrifying to us as Mothra and Godzilla were to Japan in the ’60s. We have been depressed, we have wanted more, we have wanted different, we have wanted out. The years since we got married have been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life.

They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.

…

I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t get divorced. I’m all for it. What I’m sick and tired of is divorced people speaking as though they are oracles from the future who know how the rest of our unions will turn out. All the marriage bashing going on out there feels like a way of shedding a certain amount of personal responsibility. By telling the world the institution is flawed, or that we’ve somehow outgrown it, nobody has to own up and admit that it was their interpretation of it that was screwed up.

Finally.

Finally someone has come out and said it – and in a way that is incredibly touching and honest and more poetic and courageous than I imagined it every could have been said! And I love the sentiment – Marriage is HOT.

It begs the question: Do we feel wrong about rejoicing in our marriages? Why does marriage get such a bad rap? I’m guilty myself of playing it down to friends. You know… “The old ball and chain”… “We can’t come out tonight… we’re an old married couple now”… truth is, we’re usually ensconced in a blanket watching a movie or out on date night laughing together and… dare I say it, I would much rather be there than out dancing in a club fending off sleazeballs.

Are we ashamed of being happily married? In a world where the divorce rate is fast approaching 50%, where propositions are put forward to instigate 7-year marriage contracts instead of lifelong ones? A world where so many people around us are having relationship problems, are divorced, separated, single… are we ashamed to exult in our own happy marriages?

Or is it just plain unfashionable to be happily married? If I sit here spouting declarations of love for my husband, will you assume I’m part of a cult? Brainwashed? An idiot? I kind of think you would…

It’s perfectly okay for gushing brides to cry on their wedding day, but once the honeymoon is over its straight back to the boring business of marriage for you, Missy! It feels… weird?… to be the kind of person who talks about how much they love their husband. Does anyone else feel that way?

Now, I’m not saying that it’s all happy-kitty-bunny-pony in married land! I’m not delusional. Hell, I’ve only been here four months! Even so, I’m not expecting happily ever after…

But, whatever this marriage throws at me, I’m looking forward to it. As long as we’re both in it for the long haul, whatever doesn’t divorce us just makes us stronger, right? And in the meantime, are we allowed to enjoy the ride?

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