The good long marriage
The summer my marriage turned 27, during a visit with my mother-in-law, I was up early one morning padding quietly around her elegant Westmount apartment. Even though I had seen them countless times, I found myself studying the framed wedding photos of her four children.
Over there on a side table was her eldest son, Martin, and me, married in our early thirties (why did I ever let that stylist curl my hair like that?), smiling with a not-quite-deer-in-the-headlights look, but not exactly relaxed, either.
Two other wedding photos represented marriages that are now 25 and 37 years old, respectively: one glam mid-twenties couple formally decked out and grinning broadly, another very young couple, the bride — at 19 — looking earnest, with daisies in her hair. Only one photo — of a luminous midlife bride at her second wedding two years ago — broke the mould.
Imagine the collective story of the heart’s progress these pictures tell. They embody, after all, that most iconic and impenetrable of domestic poses: the bride and groom on their wedding day. Those photos certainly couldn’t predict what lay ahead for each duo — the heart-wrenching hairpin turns that would threaten to finish us off, the heroism and banality of daily struggles that define modern marriage (careers, kids, equality, calamities). “The full catastrophe” in the words of Zorba the Greek, who knew what he was talking about even if he is a fictional character.
Our culture bows down before the breakup. Think of the media hue and cry last year when former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced they were splitting after 40 years. There was, on the one hand, widespread congratulations on their “bravery” and, on the other, the conviction that if this most publicly loving couple couldn’t make it, who could?
Face it, healthy marriages don’t sell novels and they certainly don’t sell movies. “Happy, darling?” says the handsome husband to the lovely wife over breakfast in the garden room. That scene works only if around the corner is a brutal axe slaying or at the very least a shocking revelation. No one accepts unequivocal quotidian happiness in a marriage — especially those of us who are married.
Over there on a side table was her eldest son, Martin, and me, married in our early thirties (why did I ever let that stylist curl my hair like that?), smiling with a not-quite-deer-in-the-headlights look, but not exactly relaxed, either.
Two other wedding photos represented marriages that are now 25 and 37 years old, respectively: one glam mid-twenties couple formally decked out and grinning broadly, another very young couple, the bride — at 19 — looking earnest, with daisies in her hair. Only one photo — of a luminous midlife bride at her second wedding two years ago — broke the mould.
Imagine the collective story of the heart’s progress these pictures tell. They embody, after all, that most iconic and impenetrable of domestic poses: the bride and groom on their wedding day. Those photos certainly couldn’t predict what lay ahead for each duo — the heart-wrenching hairpin turns that would threaten to finish us off, the heroism and banality of daily struggles that define modern marriage (careers, kids, equality, calamities). “The full catastrophe” in the words of Zorba the Greek, who knew what he was talking about even if he is a fictional character.
"In Canada, many more couples are staying married today than are getting divorced"
Are these photos proof that we are extraordinary to have lasted so long? Not quite. In Canada, many more couples are staying married today than are getting divorced. But that’s not what we experience (half of my close girlfriends have gone through a divorce). That’s not what we feel. That’s not what we fear.Our culture bows down before the breakup. Think of the media hue and cry last year when former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced they were splitting after 40 years. There was, on the one hand, widespread congratulations on their “bravery” and, on the other, the conviction that if this most publicly loving couple couldn’t make it, who could?
Face it, healthy marriages don’t sell novels and they certainly don’t sell movies. “Happy, darling?” says the handsome husband to the lovely wife over breakfast in the garden room. That scene works only if around the corner is a brutal axe slaying or at the very least a shocking revelation. No one accepts unequivocal quotidian happiness in a marriage — especially those of us who are married.
