Romantic Weight of Marriage
Last night, I thought Steady Eddie asked me to marry him. Luckily, when I asked him if that was the case, he said no.
We were, actually, just throwing around some hypotheticals regarding tax implications and business deductions. Since he picks up a lot of my current business expenses, neither he nor I can take them as deductions--or at least we haven't figured out how to do it. We figured it'd be a lot easier if we were married.
It isn't just taxes that would be easier--a lot of other living arrangement/living expense aspects would be much, much easier to handle, too.
The practical things, however, don't seem to be what bothers us about making a living arrangement. When we got to talking about the whys and wherefores of getting married, I was totally open, "you know," I started, "I just can't handle all the stuff about how the person you marry should be your soul mate, and that you're supposed to have all this grand passion for the rest of your lives together...
That happened with both of my husbands. I can't deal with all that pressure to have this perfect romance. It just doesn't work for me."
And it doesn't. Both my husbands told me I was their soul mate. My second husband used to call me "my one true love." Yeah...that faded when I wasn't a cash cow any more.
And if I had a buck for every fool who ever told me I was his "soul mate," well, I wouldn't be looking to go on food stamps again....
So, it just seems to me that all the hyped-up romance of marriage is putting so much pressure on me that I freak at the idea. I don't know if I have it in me to be totally romantically in love with one person.
Steady Eddie agreed with me about the romantic hype around marriage....that we, in our respective relationships, both went into it thinking that we'd found our one and only true life love only to find out that, somehow, we'd been mislead.
That's what made me think that we, as a whole, put way too much into the romantic weight of a marriage at the expense of other things like caring, companionship, and pragmatic money managing.
Steady Eddie and I have a wonderful companionship. Pretty early on in our relationship, I realized that I really didn't want to be with anyone else but him. I felt secure, and he treated me not like a love object or toy, but like a person. We have been able to have hard discussions about money, and he actually likes bearing the financial responsibilities of a relationship. I can think about money, but don't have to be obsessively worrying about it--or about how the bills will get paid if I'm not "pulling my weight" (as my ex-husband used to accuse me of *not* doing.) He likes that I'm not a spendthrift, that I enjoy cooking even though I hate housework, and that I'd rather do things like go on vacations than keep up with the Joneses.
He kind of likes the idea that I'm free to explore whatever I need to explore, while he works at something he really likes. He's a practical guy with practical skills and enjoys the results of employing those practical skills.
We don't have big romance or grand passion. We don't make the earth move for each other.
We have an abiding friendship, a kind of simple love that's grown over the years we've been together. I respect his practicality while he respects my drive and creativity. We don't push nor force the other person to do things that each doesn't like. I don't make him go to parties with lots of people he doesn't know, and he doesn't push me to go on day-long or overnight hikes in the Adirondacks.
However, we have secret, separate lives. We know each of us has a secret life, and we don't discuss them with each other. As much as we are together, we do, on some levels, live separate lives. We worry that these separate lives might interfere with our lives together--just as much as we fear that the other person will change once a ring is on his/her finger.
We both know the latter part of that sentence all too well and don't want that again. We both feel that it was the pressure to merge our lives into one giant romantic happily ever after that put unrealistic expectations on all the people involved, and ended up being the catalyst for the eventual collapse of both our marriages.
That's why we have those secret lives.
We don't know what might happen if we still have our separate lives along with our co-mingled life. I know that I've known many people who keep deep, dark secrets from their spouses for their entire lives, and I know that all the psychologists say this is a very, very bad thing, that it undermines the primary relationship (even if those couples stay together 'till death do they part.)
But what about a couple who knows they have separate lives, and don't really have a problem with it? What if both have the inkling that their pragmatic love may be far stronger than any grand gonadal passion, and know not to confuse or conflate the two?
I am at a point in my life where I've had enough of grand passion. Grand passion is fine for a few flaming hours in a well-appointed space, but it isn't enough to sustain a long-term relationship. I also know that, sometimes, grand passion relies on illusion. It relies on no responsibilities, no bills, no extended family or community--that it is best sometimes when it is kept in a crucible where both parties are not fully persons to each other but are primarily objects of desire. Grand Passion sometimes cannot bring the two parties involved to the point of numinous transcendence both are looking for if the weight of Real Life is hanging over their heads like an old-fashioned cast-iron safe.
So, we are talking. Which is good. That's another thing I like about Steady Eddie--he has no problem talking about heavy issues and is quite good at it. He doesn't have hissyfits, nor does he do any drama queening and tell me how I'm "spoiling" everything by wanting to talk about heavy issues.
Because he's a grown-up about it, we tend to resolve heavy issues. Or at least come to a point where we both feel we've got whatever it is out of our systems, that the other person has heard us, and agree that, maybe, there's no right answer.
Maybe, right now, that's where we are. There is no right answer. Maybe all we need to do at the moment is go around to Open Houses on Sunday afternoon, and look at the whys and wherefores of domestic partnership agreements.
At least we both feel the weight of romantic marriage--and know to just drop it, like a rock, for the time being...
We were, actually, just throwing around some hypotheticals regarding tax implications and business deductions. Since he picks up a lot of my current business expenses, neither he nor I can take them as deductions--or at least we haven't figured out how to do it. We figured it'd be a lot easier if we were married.
It isn't just taxes that would be easier--a lot of other living arrangement/living expense aspects would be much, much easier to handle, too.
The practical things, however, don't seem to be what bothers us about making a living arrangement. When we got to talking about the whys and wherefores of getting married, I was totally open, "you know," I started, "I just can't handle all the stuff about how the person you marry should be your soul mate, and that you're supposed to have all this grand passion for the rest of your lives together...
That happened with both of my husbands. I can't deal with all that pressure to have this perfect romance. It just doesn't work for me."
And it doesn't. Both my husbands told me I was their soul mate. My second husband used to call me "my one true love." Yeah...that faded when I wasn't a cash cow any more.
And if I had a buck for every fool who ever told me I was his "soul mate," well, I wouldn't be looking to go on food stamps again....
So, it just seems to me that all the hyped-up romance of marriage is putting so much pressure on me that I freak at the idea. I don't know if I have it in me to be totally romantically in love with one person.
Steady Eddie agreed with me about the romantic hype around marriage....that we, in our respective relationships, both went into it thinking that we'd found our one and only true life love only to find out that, somehow, we'd been mislead.
That's what made me think that we, as a whole, put way too much into the romantic weight of a marriage at the expense of other things like caring, companionship, and pragmatic money managing.
Steady Eddie and I have a wonderful companionship. Pretty early on in our relationship, I realized that I really didn't want to be with anyone else but him. I felt secure, and he treated me not like a love object or toy, but like a person. We have been able to have hard discussions about money, and he actually likes bearing the financial responsibilities of a relationship. I can think about money, but don't have to be obsessively worrying about it--or about how the bills will get paid if I'm not "pulling my weight" (as my ex-husband used to accuse me of *not* doing.) He likes that I'm not a spendthrift, that I enjoy cooking even though I hate housework, and that I'd rather do things like go on vacations than keep up with the Joneses.
He kind of likes the idea that I'm free to explore whatever I need to explore, while he works at something he really likes. He's a practical guy with practical skills and enjoys the results of employing those practical skills.
We don't have big romance or grand passion. We don't make the earth move for each other.
We have an abiding friendship, a kind of simple love that's grown over the years we've been together. I respect his practicality while he respects my drive and creativity. We don't push nor force the other person to do things that each doesn't like. I don't make him go to parties with lots of people he doesn't know, and he doesn't push me to go on day-long or overnight hikes in the Adirondacks.
However, we have secret, separate lives. We know each of us has a secret life, and we don't discuss them with each other. As much as we are together, we do, on some levels, live separate lives. We worry that these separate lives might interfere with our lives together--just as much as we fear that the other person will change once a ring is on his/her finger.
We both know the latter part of that sentence all too well and don't want that again. We both feel that it was the pressure to merge our lives into one giant romantic happily ever after that put unrealistic expectations on all the people involved, and ended up being the catalyst for the eventual collapse of both our marriages.
That's why we have those secret lives.
We don't know what might happen if we still have our separate lives along with our co-mingled life. I know that I've known many people who keep deep, dark secrets from their spouses for their entire lives, and I know that all the psychologists say this is a very, very bad thing, that it undermines the primary relationship (even if those couples stay together 'till death do they part.)
But what about a couple who knows they have separate lives, and don't really have a problem with it? What if both have the inkling that their pragmatic love may be far stronger than any grand gonadal passion, and know not to confuse or conflate the two?
I am at a point in my life where I've had enough of grand passion. Grand passion is fine for a few flaming hours in a well-appointed space, but it isn't enough to sustain a long-term relationship. I also know that, sometimes, grand passion relies on illusion. It relies on no responsibilities, no bills, no extended family or community--that it is best sometimes when it is kept in a crucible where both parties are not fully persons to each other but are primarily objects of desire. Grand Passion sometimes cannot bring the two parties involved to the point of numinous transcendence both are looking for if the weight of Real Life is hanging over their heads like an old-fashioned cast-iron safe.
So, we are talking. Which is good. That's another thing I like about Steady Eddie--he has no problem talking about heavy issues and is quite good at it. He doesn't have hissyfits, nor does he do any drama queening and tell me how I'm "spoiling" everything by wanting to talk about heavy issues.
Because he's a grown-up about it, we tend to resolve heavy issues. Or at least come to a point where we both feel we've got whatever it is out of our systems, that the other person has heard us, and agree that, maybe, there's no right answer.
Maybe, right now, that's where we are. There is no right answer. Maybe all we need to do at the moment is go around to Open Houses on Sunday afternoon, and look at the whys and wherefores of domestic partnership agreements.
At least we both feel the weight of romantic marriage--and know to just drop it, like a rock, for the time being...
posted by Tish Grier at 6:26 PM
2 Comments:
I love this post. I think this same thing happens even within marriages, when you finally figure out who's who and what's what and that most of that doesn't matter, but more the other stuff--that the earth feels good beneath your toes, not that he makes it move for you. right? i think this post describes mature relationships--what happens when all the "this is what i thought it should be" and "oh my soulmate" gets ripped away by what really is. You're left with two people who've gone through bad and good and somehow manage to stay friends. That's pretty cool and better than any royal wedding!
miss you, by the way.
thanks J! I thins that because my relationship growth has been spred out over different men that it's hard to put into perspective that what I'm looking at now is a grown-up relationship. Often, when people divorce, there's a tendancy to think that they have to pick up, relationship-wise, where they left off in their 20's. That's awful hard to do when you're middle-aged, you have less energy than a 20-something (when was the last time you got by on 4 hrs sleep?), socializing paterns have changed, and you are much less driven by your hormones.
It also doesn't help that we have very few role models for grown-up relationships--or at least ones that aren't in some way perpetuating the "happily ever after" thing.
and, yeah, would be nice if we lived closer :-)
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