So in my last post I said that the state of marriage is in flux.
I recently read Nora Ephron's autobiographical novel, Heartburn. Her character in the book, Rachel, is heavily pregnant with her second child with her second husband. She is 38. She discovers that he is having an affair. (This was Ephron's experience.) The year is 1983.
In the book, most of the couples she knows have struggled with infidelity and divorce. The one lovely marriage is between her therapist and her husband. Everyone else is divorcing or divorced or remarrying. Curious, I googled the peak for divorce in the United States, and it was in 1980.
Her therapist Vera wisely intones that Rachel subconsciously chose her husband knowing he was unreliable. Rachel pushes against that analysis:
"You picked him," Vera said, "because his neuroses meshed perfectly with yours." I love Vera, I truly do, but doesn't anything happen to you that you don't intend? "You picked him because you knew it wouldn't work out." "You picked him because his neuroses meshed perfectly with yours." "You picked him because you knew he'd deprive you the way your mother or your father did." That's what they're always telling you, one way or another, but the truth is that no matter whom you pick, it doesn't work out; the truth is, no matter whom you pick, your neuroses mesh perfectly and horribly; the truth is that no matter whom you pick, he deprives you the way your mother or your father did. "You picked the one person on earth you could have problems with." "You picked the one person on earth you shouldn't be involved with." There's nothing brilliant about that—that's life. Every time you turn around you get involved with the one person on earth you shouldn't get involved with.
And what's all this about picking, anyway? Who's picking? When I was in college, I had a list of what I wanted in a husband. A long list. I wanted a registered Democrat, a bridge player, a linguist with particular fluency in French, a subscriber to The New Republic, a tennis player. I wanted a man who wasn't bald, who wasn't fat, who wasn't covered with too much body hair. I wanted a man with long legs and laugh wrinkles around the eyes. Then I grew up and settled for a low-grade lunatic who kept hamsters.* At first I thought he was charming and eccentric. And then I didn't. Then I wanted to kill him.
*Her first husband.
"Doesn't anything happen to you that you don't intend?"
Right here is the struggle of the single. That if one is single, one is being ridiculously selective; if one's relationship failed, it's because she subconsciously chose badly. The burden is all on her, the individual, even though relationships involve two people, not just one calling the shots.
(Although, in the book her second husband cheated on her before proposing. Ladies, take notes: don't take him back.)
The confusion over marriage is evident here. She thought she was being realistic and settled. That blew up in her face.
I once heard a shiur where the rabbi was complaining that back in the old country, divorce was practically unheard of, as opposed to today. Yes, because back then, the stigma of divorce and the struggle to survive made it a near impossibility. It doesn't mean the marriages were any happier or fulfilling.
2 comments:
Settling: I think there's a difference between "I didn't think I wanted this, but in this relationship, we make it work" and "I don't want this, but it's my only chance to get married, so I'll put up with it even though it drives me crazy." Those are two very different things.
Matching neuroses: I think people do tend to gravitate towards people with similar experiences, which often means similar neuroses (using the word colloquially). With my wife and myself, it meant actual mental health and neurodivergent similarities. But, as with everything, there is free will. My wife and I use our similarities for understanding and unconditional acceptance. Other couples might just drive each other crazy. You get to decide what to do with it. You can't just blame it for the failure of a relationship, nor, conversely does it mean that the relationship requires no effort.
I don't see the first example as "settling." That's my personal viewpoint. Some people see themselves as ending up with a specific sort of someone, then they meet someone who is very different than what they expected but they still are excited at the prospect of marriage with them.
"Settling" is the second example: "I'm old and I can't be the last person from my high school class to get married."
There is definitely something to understanding where your spouse is coming from in terms of perspective. Han and I can both get anxious - but about completely different things. He and I have made each other less nervous about certain things because we talk each other off our own unique ledges ;)
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