Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage

by Heather Havrilesky

But I have to admit, there’s something reassuring, to me, about breaking down, falling into disrepair, losing your charms, and misplacing your keys, when you have an equally inept and irritating human tolerating it all, in spite of a million and one very good reasons to put on his walking boots and take his love to town.

Marriage can’t always be about living your best lives in sync. Because some of the peak moments of a marriage are when you share in your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, and your longing. That commitment, the one that can withstand and even revel in the darkest corridors of a life, grows and evolves and eventually transcends a contract or a ceremony the way an ocean overflows and subsumes a thimble of water.

A wedding is the culmination of every wrongheaded notion you’ve ever had, every delusional belief you’ve ever embraced, every self-obsessed urge you’ve ever indulged: You be the prince, and I’ll be the princess.

That’s marriage, maybe: A lifetime of apologies to each other, to everyone else, to the trees outside your window, to the shoes on your feet. A lifetime of apologies to your children, your pets, your parents, your friends. “I’m doing my best,” you tell them. “I swear, I’m doing my best.”

Instead, Bill reminded me of who I was, over and over again. He didn’t see the lazy loser or the disgusting ghoul I saw. He saw someone who mostly had it together, who meant well, who was doing her best.

But Bill didn’t want me to work harder. He looked at me and saw a hard worker, even when I was slacking off. He was the first person I’d ever known who told me to be good to myself, and acted like I deserved it. “You’re already doing so much,” he said repeatedly. It took so long to hear him.

You’re inferior and superior, like an immature prep school kid, like a self-hating hipster, like a sad suburban newbie on Nextdoor, decrying the dearth of quality pho in the neighborhood.

All I know is that it’s hard to make choices that make sense for you and your husband and your kids. It’s hard not to feel like you’re messing it all up. Everything feels personal, and everything leaves a mark.

I’m middle-aged, so I have all kinds of baseless and unfair opinions, which people used to call “being fucking delusional” but now refer to as “honoring your truth.”

Every pig in shit has its own array of rationalizations: Maybe I deserve more than most. Maybe I shine more when I take more. Who would I be without too much? Maybe I just want more. Isn’t that okay? Why should I always be the one who’s generous, the one who’s fine with less?

The tides can rise and pull us out to sea, but our love won’t die. That’s not a leap of faith, it is faith itself. It’s already chiseled in stone.