Matrimony

I left this as a comment on Annie's site, but it was too introspective not to reproduce here. ;)

I've been legally married twice, and by common law, several other times. I've had children in and out of wedlock, and I have suffered (and caused others to suffer) some slings and arrows of matrimony.

I was interested to read your column on rom-coms, Annie. I think that's in a nutshell what killed my first marriage. We were young, inexperienced, and I was under the dillusion that marriage would make my grief over my brother's death all better. It didn't.

I turned down a marriage proposal some time after that, although the idea that I could make it work with an ex-con/ mental patient/ welfare bad boy did cross my mind. Fortunately, I had evolved a little in my thinking, and I moved on.

I got pregnant with a man whose preferred method of "courting" was to call me up at 9:30 pm on a Wednesday to ask if I was horny. He liked me to leave the lights off, and the sliding glass door unlocked, so he could let himself in, and leave without the bother of human interaction- what was I thinking? Thank goodness I did not convince myself I could/would make it work with him, although I was left with a treasure of a boy from him.

I promised myself I would be a better wife to Willis, which worked for a while. He was a good man, but the mental health issues we both struggled with made this relationship pretty challenging. He died from bipolar disorder, and I still sometimes regret that I wasn't the wife I aspired to be with him. I'm a better widow, I think.

My current marriage is my last, with any luck. Neither of us wishes to undertake the legal trappings of marriage this time round, but we both wear rings. We refer to each other as husband and wife.

Will "it" work? I'm no longer sure that there is any "it" to marriage. Rob and I do our utmost to get along, support each other, learn from each other, enjoy each other. Neither of us is interested in doing this over again, so we are pretty determined to figure out how to keep getting along, even when it is challenging to do so.

So, what I want from marriage, this time 'round, is to be a partner, lover and companion, and to have one in return. So far, so good.