Tom with his littlest girl
Sometimes my husband is the annoying partner on the group presentation. I always preferred working alone because the partner never gets all the crumbs when he sweeps the floor and why for the love of everything holy is he even sweeping when the vacuum is right there and then he might have some chance of getting that piece of bagel petrifying under the breakfast bar? Does he work at doing everything the wrong way or is obliviousness an Olympic sport now?
Once he did do something worse than just not reading my mind, an actual wrong thing, except not really a thing-thing but a principle-thing, but still a thing worse than leaving me with the kids to go play basketball — s0 I do know the difference, but still it’s the everyday things, like slurping your soup, that slowly smother romantic love. Or as Irving Becker said, “If you don’t like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over in your lap and you won’t mind.”
I think what he really meant is that when you love someone and they slurp every single time you sit down at the table, even when they know it hurts you deep inside where you simply can’t overcome the buggingness of it on a cellular level, it’s grating enough that you’d rather they dumped it in your lap.
It’s like Fiddler on the Roof, and one day you’re the Motel and Tzeitel couple, giving each other a pledge and knowing the world would end if you had to marry the stinky rich butcher. And then two (or thirteen) years later you’re Tevye and Golde, even if it wasn’t technically an arranged marriage, even if it was wild and crazy and Motel and Tzeitel to begin with. Even if this isn’t tsarist Russia and we have the leisure to sit around debating the relative merits of romantic versus companion love.
Tom has always been The One, ever since I read his literary biography (it was college, we were English majors, being pretentious was a requirement) and then met him in person on Valentine’s Day, which is funny because we are not romantic-type people, until you realize that having someone to laugh with about how absurd the mechanics of sex really are is actually the most romantic thing ever. Someone you can tell anything to, who won’t be shocked (or worried) when you admit your doubts, someone who lets you change your mind and is patient when really you’re the same old person no matter how much you want to change, or don’t want to change because change is hard.
Last week I tried church lady zumba. I thought my uterus was going to shake right out, I don’t think hips were really designed to do that, except in active labor, maybe. I meant to take some ibuprofen, but then I started watching hulu and the medicine cabinet seemed far away from my comfy bed. Tom snuggled up in that way he has, that way that means he wants to love me, head on my shoulder, and since he let me finish NCIS first, I was willing.
I was so relaxed and happy afterward I forgot all about the ibuprofen (until the morning, when I surely did remember).
If I had known thirteen years ago what I know now about Tom, about our kids, about our marriage and our life and the sex and his patience and hard-workingness and even if I had known that he wipes his nose on the sheet on his side of the bed (probably when he’s mostly asleep but still) and thinks I won’t notice (I do) . . .
I would’ve proposed on our first date, instead of waiting for the second.
Subscribe by email
I love this. It’s real, and that’s my favorite way to be.
When my husband dies, the first thing I’ll miss is the glob of toothpaste on the bathroom sink that’s I’ve cleaned up (and cussed under my breath about) for the last 34 years. Hmmmmm!
Shannon Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I will NOT miss the neon blue globs of toothpaste my kids leave all over their sink.
Ever since you linked to that site I’ve been thinking about this particular comment:
“Can any person maximize happiness in a long-term relationship? I know of no “happy marriages” or even happy long-term relationships. Almost everyone I’ve ever known has said that happiness starts to decline after two or three years.
Studies show that it’s impossible for two people to be “in love” for more than a few years. It’s how our brains work. It seems apparent that serial monogamy is best – two or three years together, maybe four, and then find someone new.”
—
The more I think about it the stupider the comment seems, not only because it’s amoral and selfish, but because even the science doesn’t hold up. I’m perfectly willing to believe that the emotional quality of love changes after two or three years, and even that the emotional quality of those first years is what many people think of as “romantic love,” but why should pop culture or even some social scientists get to determine what “real” romantic love is? Many of us would say that growing old together and caring for each other is genuinely romantic and even exciting, even after the first flush of wild hormones wears off.
Also, I’ve heard of another study that showed that couples who were having marriage difficulties but stayed together anyway were happier seven years later. (It’s possible that those who didn’t stay together were those who really had irreparable damage in their marriages, but the study still showed that if there’s any way you can make it work, there will be a payoff.) And there are yet other studies showing that long-term married couples are on average healthier and wealthier than those who aren’t married.
Also, if the commenter really doesn’t know any happily married people, one obvious explanation could be that he just hangs with the wrong crowd. Years and years ago I read that people with happily-married friends are more likely to find marital happiness themselves. Geography plays a part, too–marriages thrive much better in some parts of the country than in others. So he might find himself with a very different view of things if he moved and got new friends.
Anyway, I know I’m just preaching to the choir, but today certainly seems like a good day to sing harmonious praise of the real love in long-term commitment.
Shannon Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Amen, Sister!
I actually will buy the comment/study that happiness in marriage dips in the middle with the kids and the mortgage, etc, and then goes back up. For me, being a mother is much harder than being a wife, but it’s hard to untangle those two roles sometimes.
But I agree with your assessment of that comment — what about the studies that show married people have more sex than swinging singles? Anyway, I don’t really care what the studies say so much — anecdotally, being married makes me happy, even when I’m annoyed.
I really loved this Shannon. I echo your sentiments fully.
I would like to think I would miss my husband’s socks all over the house. I wouldn’t… but I would surely miss him.
I love this post. I’ve been thinking a lot about how love changes over time and it really does get better (although those rough patches still suck). But when I see newly marries or engages people they seem very cute, but I would never want go back to that time. Give me a love that has lasted 15 years and showed its true strength.