Their Marriage
I’m angry. I’m resentful. I’m dismayed, sad, and weepily nostalgic for the time before I heard The News. And I’m not even the one going through the divorce.
My husband and I have been friends with the couple for nearly two decades. Ten years ago, the four of us, along with their adorable infant daughter, lived together for a couple of months while She and He house-hunted. We even tossed around the idea of the four of us buying a property together. It was such a blissful time. Their little girl was the first baby I’d spent much time around. I learned so much about parenting from them. (Feta cheese and chopped tomatoes can make a perfectly healthy breakfast for a ten-month old; “I like to brush my teeth before I pick her up out of the crib so she smells fresh breath,” She told me; a four to one ratio of adult to child is just about perfect for maximum household happiness.)
Our wedding photographer snapped a beautiful candid shot of the couple at our reception, their bodies close, his eyes on her, her head tilted back with laughter. Both of them sexy, relaxed, happy. We had babies (our first, their second) within a few months of each other, vacationed together, enjoyed too many birthday and dinner parties to count.
Now our dear friends are divorcing and the world feel off-kilter.
I probably need someone to give me a little shake and say, “This is not about you.” I need to be a better friend. I need to snap out of this. I need to listen actively and sympathetically and shush up about my own feelings. Unfortunately, I am not very good at shushing up about my own feelings.
Here, for instance, are some of my feelings. While I was still in shock over the news that my friends were having marriage problems, I had a split second of insight into why the religious right fear gay marriage as a threat to the institution.
“How on earth does someone else’s marriage have any affect on your own?” I had always wanted to ask the opponents of equal rights, if I could just get over my revulsion at the idea of a conversation with an opponent of equal rights. That argument only seemed to reveal the arguer’s own doubts about true commitment.
Cue the Bad News and my moment of empathy. If our dear friends, whose union seemed rock solid, were actually living on shaky ground, who knows what unseen fault lines lay beneath the surface of my own marriage state? So, yes, I guess another couple’s marriage can extend tendrils into my own – tendrils of example, of community, of support, of love. But then I remembered that I wasn’t trying to legislate discrimination in the name of “protecting” those tendrils. And moment of empathy ended.
I’ll be saving my empathy for my friends, their children and their pain, and for those loving couples, straight and gay, ready to commit to each other for a lifetime.
Original post to The Chicago Moms. Cindy blogs at We All Fall Down. Photo by alixbip via Creative Commons.
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Category: Love and Marriage
I firmly believe that the marriages of those around us have a huge impact on our own. Just last night I saw that a show (I don’t recall which one because I have the worst memory ever) is doing a segment this week (maybe today) on “Is Divorce Contagious?” Obviously it isn’t in the traditional sense of the word. But as someone who has been through some pretty horrible times in my marriage I do know that my divorced/single/separated friends didn’t even give pause before suggesting “leave him” etc. I think it all plays into simply being more acceptable the more you are around it. Generations ago, so few people were divorced because it simply wasn’t a “real” option. People muddled through. These days many divorce for a whole slew of reasons that often boil down to it not being fun anymore!!
I wish the best for your friends, and I would suggest simply keeping the communications lines in your own marriage open extra wide as you travel along side them in this.
some good friends of ours split a few years ago, and the “reasons” for their split still come up in our own conflicts. if someone you know to be otherwise rational and sane suddenly wants to leave for what seem like insane reasons, how can i be sure my own husband won’t suddenly turn “insane”?
I grew up in a house where the word “divorce” was only said in a somber whisper. My husband’s mother, on the other hand, was married and divorced three times. Divorce in the general seems so easy these days, but I’ve never really seen an easy divorce, especially when children are involved. My own husband and his ex-wife did a very good job of staying kind to and about each other, and I think it made all the difference to their children.
That was a great post. Real life wise, burdens borne in differnet situations vary drastically.
For example, the burdens of poverty are multi-fold and very difficult. Be thankful that some, by the grace of god, do not suffer those hardships.
Thank you.
Bronco
Very poignant; maybe a more personal example of how we all felt to hear the news about Al and Tipper.