Marriage and Divorce

I don't know why I still keep a Facebook page. I guess it's part about some career options, part about keeping in touch with those I would never contact otherwise, and part voyeurism. I get to see some of how the other half lives, some of how the unlucky in love lives, and how some who have way too much in common with me lives....

Every time I hear about another friend getting divorced after 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, I think it will never happen to me. And yet, they seemed so happy. They made it work. When everyone said it would fall apart, they lasted. Until they didn't.

They married too young, I say. They didn't know each other. They were in love with the idea of being in love. They didn't plan for changes. They didn't know that it would take hard work. They didn't realize that people change and that they would change as much as their partner would, and not necessarily in the same direction.

And then I insist. It won't happen to me.

This month marks six years for me and my husband being together, almost  two and a half married, beyond the full 15 for being friends. Every day that goes by I hear about another failed relationship, and I think "Hell no. Not mine." Because, I think, we know how to weather the hard stuff. We know how to face the difficult times. Hell, we've faced a lot of them, and we've emerged stronger.

We'll be better than that.

But I can't deny it. Every time I hear about the divorce of another couple that I thought was solid ... I panic a little bit. Every day, I think about how I can make my husband know that i love him. Every day, I wonder whether I'm taking advantage of the goodness I have in my life. Every day, I think that the mistake I've made will be something that will make me less in my friends', in my family's, and most of all in my husband's eyes. And I go through a moment of panic.

It's a right-brained person's mind, right? Every mistake is the last mistake. If I forget to vacuum because I was busy following my dreams of writing... If I forget to pack the bookshelves because I was making a too elaborate dinner that I ultimately burned and we now have to order pizza... If I forget to switch over the clothes and now he has no gym shorts to wear to the climbing gym ... As a right-brained person, it's all I can do to keep those things straight. It's also, simultaneously, all I can do to keep from assuming that my failure to meet those relatively tiny goals will result in ultimate discard. If I can't remember the barest things that keep a life functioning, why am I worth holding on to? The couch is covered in cat hair? I've failed. The chicken is undefrosted and we have to resort to Ramen and hotdogs? Failure as a wife....

And it's absurd to think it will get easier with children. They'll keep us up. They'll interfere with housework, dreams, with our work, social lives, our family life, and everything else we can imagine in our life right now. How does anyone think a marriage can survive that?

They do. Many marriages grow thinned, stressed, and unloved in the course of bringing children into the world. You can't blame them. It's completely understandable. Children are never less than a burden. They're exhausting. They're harder than anything we've ever faced before. Yet they're never less than a blessing, either.

I like to look at life objectively, since most of the time I live in a completely absurd fantasy world. (It's not my fault. I've tried to fight it. It's in my blood. I'm a writer. It's my job and my passion.) Children are hard on a marriage. If you are not completely sure of where you sit in your relationship., children will always make it harder.

But even if you are completely secure, children can screw everything up. Babies are hard work. Toddlers are more. Children, pre-teens, teenagers, and adults are so much worse. Why would you bring any of that into the world???

And stilll.... It's exactly what we do. Why?

In part because of faith.

I have faith that no matter what, we will be fine.

My husband is a wonderful man. ...

... (Well ... there goes two hours. :) )

I've literally spent two hours writing poetry, prose, and more about why my husband is amazing, and I realize all of it would be immediately dismissed by most of you and most others would refuse to acknowledge it altogether.

Let's suffice it to say, my husband is incredible.

As far as raising children goes:

I have utter faith that we will do our best to do right by them. We will read to them, give them encouragement in their imaginations  and shut down anyone that tells them that fairies and unicorns and trolls can't exist.

We will raise them to be strong, creative, inquisitive, independent, resourceful, and imaginative.

Our children will never believe that the story ends at "The End." They will discover new ways for life to flourish, to extend beyond everything we have already prescribed. They will recognize that "Once Upon A Time" is merely an opening and a suggestion. They will know, much as their mother and father do, that "should" is recommendation, that "ought" is an arbitrary map point, and that "will" is meaningless until they exceed it.

That is what being a parent means to me. I married a man who supports all of that and more. He knows what imagination means, what dreaming can do, and what absurdity can conquer. Also, I'm pretty sure, until he sees our entire family fighting gravity on a regular basis and floating over the living room games, and debating the relative importance of projectiles in vacuumed space, and then using it against our perceived enemeies, he won't report us to the authorities. ;)

I love you, my darling. Thank you for letting me dream.

Sara

Nominating My Husband for Sainthood

Ha.

I should absolutely know better.

No sooner do I announce my intentions to rededicate myself to writing with an eye to the future, but the present comes crashing down. This morning my husband's car died in a most spectacular fashion. His was supposed to be the reliable car (in light of my car's own consistent stalling/electrical problems). And the clutch basically collapsed, luckily before he got out of the parking lot at our apartment.

It looks like it's going to cost almost 2/3 the car's actual value to fix it.

He took my car in to work, and we evaluated our options.

So today, instead of writing, instead of going to the gym, instead of all my grand plans, we dealt with life.

This is probably my fault. I set a plan to be completely selfish with my artistic endeavors, and I, of course, generate a cosmic road block that says: "Not so fast!"

However, now that I sit to think about it, it's infinitely appropriate. No writer that I have ever heard of or known has had the chance to sit back and luxuriate in the privilege of writing. Not until they've sacrificed and waited and toiled for the privilege.

I've had it easy.

My husband has been so wonderful in encouraging me to pursue my dreams. He actually asked me not to get a full time job, but to concentrate on those things that make me happy, to pursue a career as a writer, even if that meant that we gave up the guaranteed second income.

Frankly, we've really made that work. We've excelled even. We may pay a little too much for rent right now, but we enjoyed dinners and drinks out with friends, trips out of town, expensive gym memberships, and very little sacrifice, all on a single income. Sure I brought in a few handfuls at a time. My work in politics helped  a lot with that, actually.

To have the chance to do almost nothing but work on my own vanity projects and creative endeavors with no immediate hope of monetary return was a luxury. One that I really don't deserve and haven't earned yet.

But I will.

We have to figure out how to fix this car with very little in savings and still find a way to move into a new place in about two months. That means we have to come up with a few thousand dollars out of the blue to pay for the necessity of this car and a deposit on a new place while we wait for our current place to cough up our security deposit in the three month time limit they have under the law. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to take on extra writing for pay, maybe look at a part time job, and cut back on a few extravagances we've enjoyed in the past few months.

That's right. Because of my husband, the saint, I barely have to give up a thing.

I don't know if you know how incredibly amazingly lucky I am to be married to such a person.

I do.