Happy-Go-Lucky

by David Sedaris

I’ve thought of that Ladies’ Home Journal column a lot lately, wondering if marital problems in the seventies and eighties weren’t all fairly basic: She’s an alcoholic. He’s been sleeping with his sister-in-law. She’s a spendthrift and a racist, he’s a control freak, etc. No couple argued over which gender their child should be allowed to identify as; no one’s husband or wife got sucked into QAnon or joined a paramilitary group. Sure, there were conspiracy theories, but in those pre-internet days it was harder to submerge yourself in them. A spouse might have been addicted to Valium but not to video games, or online gambling. I don’t know that one can technically be addicted to pornography, but that’s bound to put a strain on marriages, especially now, when it’s at your fingertips, practically daring you not to look at it. I’ve watched a number of movies and TV shows lately in which the characters’ marriages dissolve for no real reason. I said to Hugh during Ted Lasso, “Did I miss the episode where he or his wife had an affair?” The same was true of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story: “Why are they getting a divorce?”