On Partnership and Priorities

I’m confused and annoyed by this article, “On Marriage: Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” in which the author seems convinced that a happy marriage is impossible.

The problem, of course, is that the author is presupposing that the conditions under which she maintained her marriage are unavoidable; they are not, however, and they really explain a lot about the dissolution of her relationship.

See, her marriage broke up because she took on an extramarital affair; when she disclosed the affair and went with her husband to counseling, she began to lament the “work” that goes into a relationship. She then listed all the chores she deals with everyday, including picking the kids up from school, sorting mail, waiting for the cable guy, and feeding the dog. She ends that paragraph with this forlorn conclusion:

“Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.”

My issue here is that she seems to feel that the institution of marriage is responsible for her inability to take on this new “project.” I posit, however, that this failure results from the way in which she has prioritized her life.

“I’m busy” seems like everyone’s greatest defense these days. Life is fast-paced and everyone knows it, so not having the time for something as fundamental as your relationships with other people is a pretty much a given now. But I wonder how many people realize that putting money and hobbies and responsibilities before these relationships is a CHOICE, and has little to do with the strength of the marriage (or friendship) itself.

Put more bluntly: if this chick is more willing to include “wait for the cable guy” than “fix my relationship with my husband” on her to-do list, why is she blaming the institution of marriage for her divorce? Why isn’t she scratching “wait for the cable guy” off of her list first?

The problem is that people think you can have it all: money, power, love, stability, freedom. You can’t have everything you’ve ever wanted, folks. That’s pretty much the big lesson of growing up: that you have to pick which things are important to you, and then you have to prioritize them. This is what’s important to me: my family, my friends, learning, discovering. Here are the things that I would like to have, but which are much less important: fame, wealth, beauty, popularity. Therefore, I put that first list ahead of the second one; in a showdown between family and money, say, family will win. I will always turn down that high-paying job because it requires too much travel or because it would keep me away from my family. And this is what makes me happy: knowing that the things that are important to me will always come first. There's nothing wrong with having priorities that are different— say, money over family— but then you don't get to be surprised when your marriage doesn't work out, just like I don't get to be surprised when I'm dirt poor. If marriage comes after other things, then you'll be more successful in those other things than in marriage.

If the author had gone for a genuine defense of polyamory, I might have bought it. I believe that, for some people, polyamory can be a healthy way to build relationships. It’s not for me, but then again, neither is online dating or bungee jumping— just because it’s not my thing doesn’t mean I disapprove of it. But the author isn’t really arguing that she should feel free to love more than one person. She even dismisses the possibility of sexually open marriages, saying that they’re just too “icky” to most people. Really, she just thinks she should be free to have sex with someone else while her husband provides shelter and stability, all the while not really pursuing love with anyone:

“If high-revving women are sexually frustrated, let them have some sort of French arrangement where they have two men, the postfeminist model dad building shelves, cooking bouillabaisse, and ignoring them in the home, and the occasional fun-loving boyfriend the kids never see. Alternately, if both spouses find life already rather exhausting, never mind chasing around for sex. Long-married husbands and wives should pleasantly agree to be friends, to set the bedroom aglow at night by the mute opening of separate laptops and just be done with it. More than anything, aside from providing insulation from the world at large, that kind of arrangement could be the perfect way to be left alone.”

Maybe she’s being sarcastic, and I just don’t get it. Maybe she’s being trendy and clever, and I don’t understand.

But that sounds like an awfully lonely way to live.

Perhaps it’s her closing paragraph that most acutely demonstrates why I think she’s wrong:

“In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage — or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.”

There we have it: love. Love is part of a marriage, to be sure— but it is ONLY ONE PART. You also need affection, kindness, patience, compatibility, compassion, and trust.

Even ignoring the elitist, yuppie suppositions and attitudes that ran throughout the piece (for example, she maintains a sort of subtle distaste for men who cook and clean, especially with her description of how a friend discussed her husband’s pursuits: ““Ian has his Cook’s Illustrated…And his — his men’s online fennel club”), most of this article was a real crock. Maybe the part about how today’s couples are strangely drawn to the 1950s model of a marriage was kind of interesting, but the rest was pretty self-absorbed and silly.

Marriage certainly isn’t for everyone— but it’s not useless to EVERYONE. I mean, to be honest with you, I don’t know a whole lot of divorced people. Well, I have one uncle who got divorced, but that’s it. Everyone else in my family and my circle of friends is happily married or happily unmarried— no divorce needed. We have happy, healthy marriages in my family, and it doesn’t seem like any of us are “staying for the kids” (in fact, some of us don’t even have kids— a thought that never seems to occur to this article’s author). How does she explain us? Her assumptions only seem to work in her world, not in mine; they only work with her set of values, not the values I share with my family.

I don’t think divorce is some sort of horrible thing, to be honest with you. People grow apart, and lives diverge, and sometimes personalities change. I think the freedom to seek divorce when you want it is a great thing, and I don’t disapprove of people who divorce— divorce is just as much of a right as marriage.

But I think this woman is championing divorce for the wrong reasons, and is condemning marriage for the wrong reasons. And that makes me sad.