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Every book about marriage is also a book about mortality, since the success of any marriage is defined not by happiness or good fortune but by death. The assignment, after all, is to stay together until you die. Once one spouse perishes, the marriage has succeeded. Death signals victory.
That’s what makes weddings such dark comedies. What’s more entertaining and ominous than watching two naive souls sign a binding contract without understanding the fine print?
And once you’re married and therefore a true masochist, you’ll realize that all of these sensations are part of the delicious tedium of matrimony. I wrote this book to explore that tedium, along with everything else that marriage brings: the feeling of safety, the creeping darkness, the raw fear and suspense of growing older together, the tiny repeating irritations, the rushes of love, the satisfactions of companionship, the unexpected rage of recognizing that your partner will probably never change. And in writing this book, I discovered new layers within my marriage and myself, haunting and
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My younger daughter often proclaims that she will never get married. And why should she want to? As much as I prefer to believe that her father and I are setting a shining example of affectionate, radically open communication, the reality is that she’s had a lifelong all-access pass to our version of a penguin marriage: the laborious diplomacy of marital negotiations, the low-key squabbling, the mutual suspensions of disbelief, the subtle undermining, the ever-increasing codependence. After fifteen years of this graceless ballet, it’s not surprising that all my daughter wants when she grows up
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Having someone by your side every minute of your life sounds so romantic before he’s actually there, making noises, emitting smells, undoing what you’ve just done, interrupting, undercutting, begging to differ.
some of the peak moments of a marriage are when you share in your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, and your longing.
“What does it mean to become your mother?” turns out to be a central question of marriage,
Being married is far more interesting than falling in love.
Why does it feel so good to realize you’re wrong, over and over again? Maybe that’s what separates people whose marriages stick together from people whose marriages die: a little masochism and a lifelong love of learning (whether they’re actually good learners or not).
I didn’t want him to ask me to marry him with a question mark in his voice, asking not just “Will you marry me?” but also “Is this a stupid idea?” and “Am I good enough for you?” and “Are you good enough for me, or are you actually completely terrible?” I wanted him to be sure, because I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough for him or for myself or for marriage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend forever with anyone, least of all myself.
Getting married and having a kid shifts your entire understanding of yourself as a woman. How could it not? A lot of people treat you as if your charms are lost and gone forever. What I grew to hate the most, though, was how the women around me echoed those messages to themselves and each other,
I skipped the last two or three chapters on pregnancy and birth and baby care because not relevant to me and thus not interesting. This seems to get back to interesting again.
How had I gone from being a woman to being some asexual blob that’s dragging her ghost children with her everywhere she goes?
Hey what’s wrong with being an asexual blob? They never hurt nobody
Just accept that it will be exactly this bad forever, and then it’s all good! This seemed to have been my strategy ever since we’d moved to the suburbs: every time you feel angry or upset or impatient with what’s happening around you, surrender to mediocrity.
This is why surviving a marriage requires turning down the volume on your spouse so you can barely hear what they’re saying. You must do this not only so you don’t overdose on the same stultifying words and phrases within the first year, but also so your spouse’s various grunts and sneezes and snorts and throat clearings don’t serve as a magic flute that causes you to wander out the front door and into the wilderness, never to return.
Do I hate my husband? For sure, yes, definitely. I don’t know anyone who’s been married more than seven years who flinches at this concept. Before you’re married, it’s easy to imagine that hating your spouse must mean that you’re headed for divorce. Hating your spouse is as natural as disliking an unexpected bout of the flu.
It takes work sometimes, to love the people you trust, and to trust the people you love. I didn’t grow up that way.
