marriage

Those who know me know that I feel quite conflicted about marriage. I am a participant. I have been married now for over a quarter of a century. Faithful that entire time. Raised four children.

All carry my husband's name.

This marriage has been a source of stability for my husband and for all four of my children. And, let's face it, for me.

And yet...

I don't fit well in institutions. Marriage is an institution. Like organized religion. Like school systems.

Like prison.

Definition: from About.com
in·sti·tu·tion (ĭn'stĭ-tū'shən, -tyū'-)
n.

1. The act of instituting.
2. 1. A custom, practice, relationship, or behavioral pattern of importance in the life of a community or society: the institutions of marriage and the family.
   2. Informal. One long associated with a specified place, position, or function.
3. 1. An established organization or foundation, especially one dedicated to education, public service, or culture.
   2. The building or buildings housing such an organization.
   3. A place for the care of persons who are destitute, disabled, or mentally ill.

--- Look at definition 3.c.

Gives one pause.

This discomfort I have with the institution of marriage surfaces from time to time. Sometimes for no apparent reason. Sometimes, I can determine the trigger.

I've had several recently.

The play my daughter is performing in is "Dinner with Friends" and marriage, the good and the bad and the simply mundane is the play's subject. In this play, the break up of one marriage has a major impact on the marriage of their close friends.

Recently, I was visiting with my own recently divorced friend.

Other triggers for me have been my birthday-- time passing; and struggles with my youngest child-- obligation and ties, without gratitude or reward.

My friend, in her first year post-divorce, was wild and free. Now, as she has settled somewhat into her new single status, she is somewhat more contemplative. She reckons some of the costs. She has had to deal with some of the fallout.

Still, she pushes and praises and proselytizes her freedom. For her, I think, much of it is true. Her marriage was a bad one. For a variety of reasons, divorce was probably best for her. However, I think the costs are higher than she is willing to admit. I think the positives are somewhat overstated.

Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part. I have to admit that part of me envies her kicking off the traces, her freedom, her opportunities to be wild.

In my heart of hearts, I still believe myself to be the wild, free and passionate young woman I once was. But I am threatened in my belief about who I am, in part by my friend. Am I truly still the wild one when I live in this cage of middle-class marriage and abide by its rules?

Part of what bothers me about marriage is its very origin: it is the sale of the woman by her father to her husband.

My age bothers me. In the culture in which I live, there is no real status or benefit for growing older, especially if you are a woman. From here, at 51, to at least 80, there is no reward at all for aging. No additional respect. No great opportunities (unless one considers AARP membership an opportunity). At 80, or older, one begins to get some notice for mere survival. Make it to 90 with faculties intact and you get more notice. If you make it to 100, with faculties intact, you get some real notice and attention.

Although, I don't know that one really gains respect. Rather, one is a novelty, almost a freak. Age, in today's culture, gets one condescension, sometimes care, but really no respect or appreciation for a life lived, for wisdom gained.

The struggles with my youngest underscore this lack of respect or appreciation. I realize that this child-- now 18-- is in fact egocentric in the extreme. It's not about me, it's about this child-- at least in the teen's perspective. Still, I suffer a fair amount of abuse from this child. It has lessened somewhat in the past couple of months. A few months ago, when the situation was really difficult, my oldest child told me: "Mom, if this were your spouse treating you this way, you would have divorced two years ago."

And this is true. But children, born into a marriage, cannot be divorced. I am stuck: I will never NOT be this child's mother. Some obligations that come with this relationship, especially legal ones, are now ending, as the child has reached 18. Some obligations are cultural, emotional and virtually inescapable.

This is part of what I dislike about marriage: that one takes on obligations that are virtually inescapable. Divorce is a possibility; but even here, as my friend is learning, one is still bound up with the other, through children, mutual friends, mutual history.

Can one ever truly escape the past?

Which brings me back to "Dinner with Friends." In the production I saw last night, the director seemed to lean towards the couple that has divorced, Tom and Beth: underscoring sympathetically the happiness each claims to have found in freedom from the other. The playwright is more open-ended, I think. The play, to me, is Gabe and Karen's play, most of all Gabe's play. This couple has chosen to stay married.

There are differences between the couples. Tom and Beth have little in common. Gabe and Karen, on the other hand, work together, share a love for food and for travel. Tom and Beth grate upon one another. Gabe and Karen complement one another, which at one point Gabe acknowledges.

Had I directed, I would have underscored not the "happiness" of those who have divorced, but the contradictions and edge of desperation in Tom's new relationship with a much younger woman, in his need to boast of his sexual exploits and new positions; in Beth's plans to marry again, a lawyer like Tom, who worked with Tom, who cheated like Tom-- with her, ten years before Tom and Beth divorced.

Beth says: "He's not Tom."

Yeah, right.

It is a deep emotional truth that the divorce of close friends wounds and terrifies their married friends.

I would have highlighted the relationship of Gabe and Karen: in their terror, they turn to each other.

I doubt I will ever resolve my conflicting feelings about marriage. I'm still a participant. It is partly due to my husband's wisdom in giving me his trust and much freedom, without complaint. It is also partly due to my husband's stubbornness.

And maybe, somehow, I am choosing this myself. Still.