Aw, hell.
Your mom is right. But in a society in which over 85% of the population gets married and in which marital status discrimination is legal. And in which there are frequent concerns expressed about people not getting married that equate this to the decline of soceity...
Talking about 'false adversising' also just highlights the way that women are stll considered chattel and their role as 'accessories' to their husbands is still important. I could go on.
personally, I refuse to get married. I'm not convinced the institution can be saved from its roots in inequality. I know not everyone agrees with me but it'll never be just about the person until other kinds of relationships are also valued and valued equally.
Yeah, I was pretty damn young when I got married. According to MIM, my husband would have the right to get all incensed when I grow old and wrinkly, because dammit, he didn't MARRY some old, wrinkly broad! Clearly, I represented myself as young pre-nuptials! How dare I not remain that way to the grave?
What a crock of horseshit.
Anyone (woman OR man) who marries for physical appearance is in for a disappointing life.
Funny thing; I've recently (re)grown close with a man I loved when I was young. We went 16 years without seeing each other. Way back when, he was tall and lanky and smooth-skinned and stunningly handsome. He's almost 60 years old now, gnarled and kinda scraggly with more wrinkles and loose skin than a Shar Pei puppy. I can't see a bit of that -- in my eyes, he's still just as beautiful as he ever was.
By the same token, I was hotter than Georgia asphalt when I was a young thing: 120 pounds, all legs, boobs and pout and with strawberry blonde hair past my waist. These days I look like just about any other woman my age. My waist is a bit thicker, my ass is a little less perky, my hair's a lot shorter, there are crow's feet around my eyes, etc. He says I'm hotter than I ever was.
Because that's how it works. A person's appearance changes with life and time. Maybe I'm just naive, but if that INEVITABLE change is a deal-breaker for you, you're a sad excuse for a human being.
False advertising. Sweet tapdancing Jesus.
YOU JUST MADE ME WELL UP, damnit. What a touching story. It reminds my of MY grandparents, married for 57 years, both hotties back in the early 40's and they held hands the day my grandfather died and told each other they loved each other. He told her she was a sight for sore eyes -- he had been in a nursing home, unable to walk because he was so sick and weak, and we brought her to see him.
That's love. Your story was love too and it gives me hope in this sick and superficial world.
Very sweet. I wonder how much the age and experience have to do with the way both of us responded. (A lot, I'm imagining).
That was so beautiful it made me cry. Stories like that make me think that one day maybe I'll meet a man I don't hate and live with him for the rest of our lives.
My husband and I both had disappointing marriages prior to our meeting. Mine was the more traumatic - so I really didn't want to marry ever again. Live together, yes; which is what we did for three years up and until life and fate presented us with a shit or get off the pot option. (Sorry about the scatology – it just suits the story). Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, my then boyfriend was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor was, thankfully, non-cancerous (they thought); but it had been growing for a long time, and was approximately the size of a soda can. In other words – the biggest of its kind ever recorded in a living patient at that point in time. My hubby made the text books. They even filmed his surgery.
I won’t go into details – suffice it to say I had a choice to make. I was told he could come out of the surgery paralyzed, blind, deaf, brain-damaged – or a combination thereof. It was time to grow up and look at life through a different lens – one not influenced by transitory ephemera – how my husband would look post surgery never once entered my mind. If I stayed – that meant I was ready and willing to accept and cope with whatever happened. So – did I love him enough? The answer was yes. I stayed. I committed myself body and soul to this relationship. I sat through 12 hours of sheer hell, terrified the surgeon would come and tell me my man had died. I stayed through recovery, wondering if the paralysis was temporary (it was). And somewhere in the midst of all this I married him. All of this happened 20 years ago, but it still seems like yesterday.
So to anyone who thinks marriage is a series of negotiated sexual romps punctuated by occasional fits of ennui – I’m here to tell you different. Its life, and all that that entails – messy, happy, pissed off, fat, thin, good, bad – you choose a partner and ‘you takes your chance’. Frankly – I feel sorry for ‘MIM’. Her relationship, as it stands, would never survive the crucible mine was forged in. She is very immature for her age. All this happened to me before I’d seen my thirtieth birthday. She’d better wake up. If not – she’s in for some bitter surprises somewhere down the road.
MIM comes across as a girl, not a woman. She'd never survive anyone else's real life.
My husband's been in shape all his life, because as a cabinetmaker, he's on his feet all day. Now that he's 44, he's getting a little potbelly. He's still hot as hell.
I was in shape way back in college because I had to walk all over a huge campus. Then I became an editor and sat on my ass all day long, and had three children over the years. My C-section belly was funky-looking even just after my first child by my first husband, and yet it didn't scare off my current husband, the hot cabinetmaker. Now, at 46 and two C-sections later, I'm pretty round, and My husband says I'm still hot as hell.
I hope we're like KCB's Bill and L one day.
redneck mother:
You have a wonderful writing gift. I came to this through Twisty, who isn't so bad herself. I think yours is the definitive word on the matter of marriage and other long-term relationships.
That was absolutely beatiful. Thank you.
wow. you really cut to the chase & the bone. your mom sounds like a helluva woman to give you that insight. in often need to hear this clarification myself. it is not about the instution, it's about the person.
also thank you for pointing out that MIM is preaching from her pulpit of privelege. i think that quite a few people have missed that point. she is making declarations with implicit judgement about all of us if we do not happen to fit into her little tiny mindset of how the world should be.
you are fantastic writer as i think this piece beautifully illustrates. thank you.
Sweet: full of light and grace. Thankee kindly.
Wow. That was really beautiful. It made me forget about the fact that your post was about MIM in the first place. Let's not think about her anymore, shall we? There are so much better things to think about, like your lovely L and Bill.
That is a really beautiful post. My Korean friend tells me of a thing called 'chang' (sure I'm spelling the Romanization incorrectly) but your story really explains what it is - the sum of life experience that keeps us together after love/lust dies.
Our language is just really inadequate to describe this.
I'll just add my comment to the heap:
beautiful, simply beautiful.
FABOO post. I had to steal your line about 'surrendering bodily autonomy' because it was so damned on the money. I mentioned in MIM's comments of her blog the next day, and she's having a little meltdown regarding the concept... Look at the last two comments.
Let me add my praise to everyone else's - that's the best piece of writing on commitment & marriage I've read through all of this 'false advertising'. I can hardly believe I've been married for twenty years, so it isn't that hard to imagine that 40-50 years from now...if we're lucky...that will be us.
That's beautiful.
That was a great analysis. I just love the way you write!
Dear Redneck,
Thanks for writing this. It's beautifully done.
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