The Marriage Project, Reflection 48: “Forgiveness is key.”

Full disclosure: This Marriage Project interview is late in being posted because I was at a wedding. Read on:

O is 27 and lives in Seattle. 

 

Why did you decide to get married? 

It never occurred to me not to get married. I’ve never really understood why some people claim to be committed forever in their hearts but don’t choose to take this official step. Although I know break ups of very long term relationships can be just as messy as any divorce, choosing not to get married has always seemed to me like a decision made out of fear/uncertainty. I can understand saying you don’t have a “best” friend per se because all of your friends are important to you, but unless you’re in open romantic relationships with many people, once you’ve made the decision to be with one person for the rest of your life, I don’t know why you wouldn’t declare that intention with marriage. It certainly doesn’t have to be an expensive declaration in front of your 300 closest friends.  So, I always knew I would marry, and I chose to marry C. because he was the person I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.

What did you think marriage would be like?

I thought marriage would be like the 3 years we’d spent living together already, and so far that’s what it has been like. I do continually learn new things about my husband, and while I could easily have predicted that happening, I never could have predicted half of the things themselves! I think there will always be surprises, good, bad and indifferent.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

I suppose I got my ideas mostly from my parents. I grew up in a household that was…fine. It wasn’t an unhappy place. It also wasn’t always perfect, and I was well aware that although my parents did love each other, their marriage also took a lot of work. I love both my parents very much, but my dad is certainly a special case; my mom is too, for her patience in dealing with him. I knew it wasn’t the relationship I wanted to end up in, but I still think it made me realistic about marriage. Maybe ironically then, divorce simply isn’t in my vocabulary. I always felt entirely secure in my parents being married forever. Divorce was something that seemed to happen to other people, but would never happen to me, and I hope to give that feeling to my future children as well. I think that watching my parents and learning that marriage does take work and effort is what made me decide that divorce is not an option for me. Are there extreme exceptions? Of course. But I won’t let an argument, or a misstep, or even an unhappy year or two end my marriage. Marriage is a decision to be together through the good and the bad, and I believe you make a commitment to put effort into working through the bad, without letting it destroy years of love, friendship and partnership. I also think we have to accept that everyone is human, even the Prince Charming you decide to spend your life with. Forgiveness is key.

What are your thoughts on the word “wife”?

I guess I’m a bad feminist, but I don’t have any negative thoughts on the word wife. It is what I am to C., just as he is a husband to me. Maybe it’s because I’m younger and the world is already very different than it was 20 years ago, but for me “wife” doesn’t carry any connotations of bleach and cleaning gloves, or being someone else’s property. If anything, I have positive feelings about the word wife (and husband) because “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” seem like terms for high school kids, juvenile, and as C.’s wife I’m declaring that this isn’t a temporary relationship.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

I had always planned on changing my name, and it was easy for me to joke around that I didn’t even need to think about it with a last name as complicated as mine. It’s really too bad I didn’t end up with a Smith or a Jones! My surname got easier but still isn’t easy. When it actually came down to the changing, however, it suddenly felt like a much bigger deal. I was only 25 when I married, but that’s still a really long time to be called something. I hadn’t realized before how much I identified with my name. Maybe the hardest part was not sharing a name with my sister. I felt like I was torn away from her and transplanted as sister to a bunch of different siblings. I got around to changing my driver’s license very slowly, and then a couple bank accounts. I was really surprised to find out how much it mattered to my husband. Now, more than two years later, that’s still all that I’ve changed and I’ve started running into annoying hiccups here and there because of it. Now that we’re expecting our first child, I plan to go through the work of changing it everywhere (I even plan on changing things like my Safeway card and opentable.com account!) before our child is born. For some reason I just think it will be worth the one time hassle to share a family name. My mom took my dad’s name in her personal life, but kept her name professionally. It did get confusing at times – from little things like not knowing what name a dinner reservation would be under, to big things like frantically searching for an ID that proved you were both people when trying to fly internationally with your kids.

My biggest hangup still is sharing a name with my crazy parents-in-law. It’s a constant reminder that I am now a part of their family when I’d really rather not know them.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

No. I imagine this would be very different if we hadn’t lived together before marriage (and even more so if we hadn’t had sex before marriage) but we were unofficially living together after a week, and officially living together after 3 months. We spent 3 years together before getting married, and so I didn’t feel like marriage changed our relationship at all. If anything, I guess it was affirmed that this was the man who would be with me for the rest of my life, but truth be told I knew that to begin with. Nevertheless, when it comes to arguing LGBT right to marry I’ll argue til I’m blue in the face that everyone should have the right to the security and extra level of commitment that marriage gives you!

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

That I’m still capable of feeling insecure at times! That it takes a leap of faith to really trust. That a traditional wedding celebration was more about showing other people what my relationship was than defining it for myself (and despite having a fairly conservative wedding by most standards, I still wish we hadn’t spent so much money). I’ve also learned that my definitions/guidelines in life aren’t necessarily the right ones, and sometimes it’s actually me who’s being the pain in the ass!

The Marriage Project, Reflection 47: “I need the emotional safety of my marriage to have the kind of life I want.”

C is 60 and lives in Louisiana. 

Why did you decide to get married? 

I always wanted to find a suitable husband and father to raise a family. When I finally found someone who met my criteria (we had to be attracted to each other, he had to have a job, and we had to be able to communicate and have enough in common to make it work), I grabbed him.

What did you think marriage would be like?

A lot of working things out, learning more about ourselves and each other, reading a lot of books, magazines, and talking to people to help make it good. Then doing as many fun things as possible.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

Assimilating ideas from what I heard, read, and saw.

How do you feel about the word “wife”?

I love being a wife because I really like my husband.  One of my biggest blessings is being his wife. If I didn’t have it so good being a wife I might not like the word.

Why did you make the decision you made about your name?

I had been married when I was younger and took my first husband’s name. Then I changed my name about 5 times. I had no desire to go through any name change again when I remarried. I knew who I was and I didn’t want to change my identity, although I felt great that we gave our child my husband’s last name.

Do you think your relationship with your partner has changed since you got married?

Changed every second. We’ve had so much to learn and to work out, and we’ve created so many memories together that have deepened what we have together. The fact that we did so much work on ourselves and the relationship and on being parents paid off in droves. We got to have so many wonderful times because we kept processing what was in front of us.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve been married?

I think of myself as weak, but really I’m strong too. Because I feel my feelings and so much of them are pain, grief, loss, tired, and other feelings I’d rather not feel, I feel like something is wrong with me for having my feelings. But really it takes me courage to feel my feelings. I’m glad I feel my feelings. If I wasn’t in a stable relationship I don’t know if I could have my feelings. I feel safe. I need the emotional safety of my marriage to have the kind of life I want. I’ve actually learned a lot of wonderful things about myself since I’ve been married. Like that I have a lot of good qualities. Being in a long term loving relationship has been healing and redemptive.

The Marriage Project, Reflection 46: “I do approach the idea of marriage with more logic, I’d like to think.”

For this week’s segment, I interviewed E, who has a unique perspective as the daughter of two divorce lawyers. She answered a combination of the questions I pose to women who are married and not married.

Where do you think you got your ideas/concept/narrative about marriage?

My idea of marriage is entirely influenced by my parents – which is a multifaceted statement. My parents are a power couple. They own their own business together, network like crazy, and talk about work in the home. Here’s a catch: they are practicing divorce attorneys! I learned a lot from their relationship with each other. They respect each other, but in many ways adhere to the gender roles which we have become accustomed. Although my dad normally grilled the meat on the back porch, my mom was in charge of preparing dinner. She helped me when I was sick and was generally the first person I went to for help with everyday things like school. My dad was lucky that he got a tomboy, however. We spent a lot of time after school together because he coached a lot of my sports teams when I was little and continued to be my sister’s and my greatest fan throughout our sports careers.

My parents did a great job at keeping the files part of their work at home, but they’d gossip about their clients…A LOT. Sometimes it was good, but most of the time it was bad. They would concede that they saw normal people in their craziest state: during a divorce. It can evoke tremendous emotions for various people, which learned: anger, sadness, doubt, confusion, paranoia, helplessness, and more; all to the umpteenth degree. This made my concept of marriage change to some extent, however I think I’m still an idealist. I do approach the idea of marriage with more logic, I’d like to think. However, I assume that very few women (I’d hope) enter marriages expecting either party to cheat, “fall out of love,” or change. (Note: I use the word party. Haha. I’m totally my mother’s daughter.) The one thing it really made me (and my sister) realize is that as a woman, you must maintain a way to be financially stable which is definitive from your husband’s. My dad hammered this into our heads even more so than my mom. He would explain that even if we choose not to work full time (but I think that would make him cringe), keep up your credentials, volunteer in a potential career field, or work part time. He says he sees too many women ruined by divorce.

To add another wrench into the mix, this is my dad’s second marriage. My brother and sister whom I mentioned above are from his first marriage. My parents, at least from my perspective, embody exactly what every family with multiple marriages and children should be like. My mom is incredibly active in my brother and sisters lives. Obviously there is some tension, especially during large holidays such as Thanksgiving or weddings. My sister mitigates it extremely well, while my brother would rather just hide out in Chicago, but they are incredibly amicable. I’m even surprisingly close with my brother and sister’s mom and step-dad. They attended my Bat Mitzvah and we exchange gifts during “the holidays,” (they’re Catholic…don’t even get me started on the religious make-up of my family). I assume when I was little, there was more tension among the “four parents,” but I was largely shielded from that.

Why did you make the decision your made about your name?

I’m not married, but my mom kept her “maiden” name when she married her husband. It’s my middle name. I’ve never really asked her why, but I assume that part of the reason is because she was already an established lawyer in our community. She’d probably keep it anyway though. That’s what my gut says. Their law office shares both the names of my mom and dad (just like me!).

Why do you think there’s a such a stigma against women who aren’t married/choose to not to be married. How do you think this stigma has affected you?

While marriage isn’t even close to being in the cards for me right now, a single 22-year old grad student, I wouldn’t say that it’s totally out of the question. I don’t know many non married women unless they are divorced. That’s probably because I’m still young and my parents are married – couples tend to hang out with couples, I’ve noticed. I think it depends who the person is. It’s a dynamic question and a dynamic answer, but if I meet a single woman in her  late 30s or 40s who have never been married – I start to wonder why. Come to think of it, the ones I know all live in big cities. I also know women with great jobs in big cities who are married or engaged.

On the flip side, I think there is a more intense stigma for those girls who admit to coming to college simply for their MRS degree. Yes, sometimes it makes me cringe. But I guess it’s not necessarily wrong. I think about this in somewhat of a joking tone, but is it so much different than shopping the job market? Yes, obviously. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily wrong, but it’s certainly not what any of my friends represent.

in no particular order: dirty hair, roosters, wind, face wash, joy.

I’m home from Nicaragua, and so far have watched many hours of Saved by the Bell, eaten a meal with the housemates, created a giant pile of laundry, and showered without the use of a bucket. On the plane, I tore the same picture out of five of the same inflight magazine, imagining some future project without details.

When I travel, I’m determined not to be a tourist, which is easier in some situations than others, this trip being an example. Photography is and should be complicated. In some ways, my journal is my camera, and when it’s not, I want to  take pictures that are  subtle and weird and gentle and strangely necessary.

the farm: Cooperativa de Proyectos Agropecuarios de Diriamba (COOPAD)

my bed, otherwise known as the Mall of Chanel, because I like to be able to see all my stuff at once.

late afternoon in our bunk

chorito the cat