Is it already Wednesday? I am falling woefully behind on my list for the week. I hope this doesn’t portend anything significant for the Forthcoming academic year. Once things kick off, they do not, as I’m sure you are aware, let up.
First of all, this morning, I do feel very sorry for the woman in this video that is being gasped over on X (it’s only 37 seconds long):
Basically, what happened was, the person officiating the marriage ceremony of the two people, presented them to the gathered assembly as “Mr. and Mrs. Brandon something or other” (couldn’t make out the name), but before anyone could clap or anything, the bride turned round to tell said officiant that it wasn’t to be like that. He, then, made an awkward and horrified face, and tried to do it again. The new husband is only seen at the end, laughing and a touch chagrined, whereas the new wife seems, well, you totally have to watch it. At the end, the officiant, who did not even know the last name of the woman being married, is heard saying, with much energy, “You did not tell me that.”
The universal feeling of all those who share this clip seems to be, ‘This Marriage Is Totes Cooked.’ ‘Run for the hills,’ the wide world is telling the new groom. I watched it without the sound, the first time, not quite knowing what I was seeing, and boy is it the most socially-awkward moment caught on screen in at least the last twenty-four hours. Then I watched it with the sound, which actually softens it a little.
Here’s the thing. That delicate rose of a bride is not trying to be a bad person. She is doing the thing that makes the most sense to her according to her age, social class, and education. She did not expect, on the day of her most expensive happiness, swathed in nuptial satin bliss, before all her friends and family, to have this happen to her. Of course, if she had had her wits about her, and if she had thought about it for a few seconds, she would have seen it ‘twere better to let it slide. Just go with it, Lady Reason would have whispered in her heart. Just don’t change your name at the Social Security Administration. If people accidentally call you by your husband’s last name on occasion, smile and don’t correct them because they’re not trying to be bad either.
I expect this sort of thing arises from people thinking it really matters what pronouns other people use for them, or what their special precious identity is. As if what someone to whom you have only just been introduced calls you is going to make or break your life’s happiness.
So, to the total embarrassment of the officiant (or whoever was dragging them through their vows that they almost certainly wrote for themselves), and the shock of the assembled gathering, he, the officiant, had to suddenly think of another way of introducing the two people now bound in holy, or some kind of matrimonial situationship. Honestly, I think the husband, laughing, looked pretty sensible if not also relaxed. I don’t know that he should necessarily run for the hills. I think if he goes on being his own self, she might let go the tight grip of control and they might get on fine together. WHO KNOWS. None of us can say what will happen tomorrow.
Which brings me to my real subject of the day. Happy Anniversary to Me, yesterday. Matt and I have been married 25 years, which, I feel, must count for something. I am extremely grateful to be married to such a clever and reasonable, not to mention gorgeously handsome man. I don’t know if my marriage is really old enough for me to start dishing out advice, but I do it without meaning to all the time, and I feel like that’s what I want to do today, so buckle up.
Here are twenty-five ways that I have found to be happy in marriage. Maybe they will work for you, or maybe you’ve already sorted out your own life to your own satisfaction. I would have thought all of these ways of living with the person of your heart would be super obvious, but some people (coughNewYorkTimesWriterscough) don’t know anything, so perhaps this will be a Help to someone, somewhere.
Twenty-Five Ways to be Happy in Marriage
1. Let the other person be a person. Don’t try to change the behavior and inclinations and thoughts and feelings of the person to whom you are married through acts of emotional subterfuge. Use ordinary persuasive and reasonable speech. The way to really stick it to him is by praying that God will rearrange him to be the person you know he can become.
2. Be a person yourself. Take responsibility for your own feelings and actions and thoughts and behaviors.
3. Don’t set traps for the other person. Don’t wake up in the morning and decide you can only be happy if he divines, through prayer or reading the innards of a chicken, that you want to be taken out to lunch. Say what you’re thinking out loud.
4. Accept what the other person says and does. Unless he says he plans to go murder someone, or sin in some appalling way, be on his side down to the spiritual bone. If he really is sinning, which, I’m sorry to tell you, he will do, after you have totally accepted him for who he is, you can then say, ‘Wow, you really seem to be defying God’s holy law. Is there any way I can help you become less wicked?’
5. Keep some of the score, but not very much of it.
6. Work on some arguments that you can keep up over the years for fun, especially in front of any children--yours and other peoples--who might be hanging around. Fight about politics, minor points of theology, whose side of the family is more agreeable, and why you each have the wrong taste in clothes or food or anything that doesn’t matter very much.
7. Work on agreeing on all essential matters.
8. Work out every single argument that matters to the very end but if you have to go to sleep while you’re still angry, that’s ok once in a while, because sometimes a little rest helps you more brilliantly marshal your arguments and facts to defeat your foe.
9. Follow the Lord’s commands about loving your enemy when you are most angry and bitter against the person you decided to marry with your own free will because you thought he was cute at the time.
10. Follow my mother’s advice to give ten free passes. The day you get married, tell yourself you’ll give your husband ten free exasperations that you will not fuss about. Like the fact that he won’t put his shoes in the place you arranged for him. Or the fact that he doesn’t think and act like you. Then, and this is the key part of the exercise: Forget To Count Properly.
11. Say one nice true thing a day OUTLOUD about the person you married TO the person you married. Don’t say any bad things--unless you just really want to. But then be prepared to explain for hours to the injured party why you were lying about the bad thing but telling the truth about the good thing.
12. Ask for help.
13. Immediately help when asked without question.
14. Stop your very important plans and work to attend to the trouble and perplexity of the person you married.
15. Spend half an hour every day out of the earshot of children or passersby to talk about whatever you want, but especially the stuff you are most unhappy about.
16. Adopt an Us Versus Them Attitude with your spouse against any children who come into your orbit. As in, you and your caro sposo (Us) versus your beloved offspring (Them).
17. Keep the Law of Date Night which includes: a. Festivus (the airing the grievances) b. The Society of Mutual Admiration and c. The Baring of the Soul.
18. Go to church together but don’t feel like you have to spend all your time there in each other’s exclusive company (unless you want to). Make your own friends and then tell each other all about it later.
19. Don’t worry about liking the same books and movies and music. Theaters now sell wine, so, if you have to watch a 3 hour war movie, you have something to do while you’re there being friendly and agreeable.
20. Join your bank accounts so you’ll really have something to fight about.
21. Whoever has the higher standard of cleanliness and order, especially when any company are bearing down upon your door, Must Win. The person with lower standards should learn how to clean better and so so so much more quickly.
22. It’s ok, if you are a wife, to insist on doing your husband’s laundry for him. He may help you with the laundry, if you think it would be alright, but it’s completely fine to reject his help in this regard. If he can cook, though, don’t be proud. A man in the kitchen, I think, is most attractive.
23. Try being helpless on occasion. Someday you might really be. Practicing ahead of time makes it easier not to be filled with clawing anxiety that the person you married according to your own decisions and inclinations might do it wrong.
24. Be respectful and generous. Don’t even talk to your children like they’re children. Talk to everyone in your household as if they are your favorite grandmother. That usually strikes the right note.
25. And finally, don’t ever hang up the phone, even if you’re walking in the door with your arms full of stuff, without saying ‘I love you.’
And also, have a nice day. You probably deserve it.
51 years on the 22nd…to the best man I know (but not every day). #21–whereas I ran a “toy museum” (according to my kids) in the early years, because I was allergic to clutter, my husband now does ALL the stuff (minus cooking and laundry) because I just don’t notice clutter as much…I will mostly unload the dishwasher for him, and I ALWAYS make the bed. It works. He loves to use his vacuum cleaner and floor scrubber…he enjoys cleaning the shower…I’m telling you, God knew what He was doing all those years ago…
My wife and I have been married 38 years, and we both came from previous marriages. If one of us says or does something stupid and ill-advised (usually me) that offends the other, we have found it best to acknowledge the offense, followed by an apology, repentance, and sometimes a peace offering from the offender. This negates the tendency to let things be and keep a list of said offenses for later retribution.