The Things I Miss About Marriage

On my birthday this last week (which was a great few days of celebrating with the man I’ve been dating and then my best friends), I met a friend for a drink and the subject of marriage came up. He asked me if I’d ever want to be married again. Six months ago, I’d have had an immediate and strong response: NO FUCKING WAY. UH-UH. NOPE. NO. NEVER. FILL UP MY MARTINI GLASS, PLEASE. 

But something peculiar has been happening to my heart over these last few months. It’s a kind of healing, I think. For a long time, my marriage had gotten so bad, so broken, so lonely, that I stopped knowing how to love. I forgot how to be soft and open. I became scar tissue. Hard, unwieldy, protecting what had been a tender wound. 

These last few months, I’ve be re-learning what it feels like to be open-hearted while also terrified. Of risking while also knowing it could crush me. I’m learning how to love in a way that is kind and open and hopeful. I’m learning to not expect love in return, but to be grateful if it’s there.

There are things I don’t like about marriage. Marriage, in my opinion, began as a way to control women, to take away their power, their identity, and their autonomy over their lives and bodies. And it hasn’t changed much over the centuries. So I have a problem with the legal side of marriage, only enforced by my two divorces where I had to leave my first marriage with nothing financially, and my second with enough to put a down payment on a house, but not much more. 

Do I want to be married again and risk financial failure? Do I want to give up half of what I’ve worked so hard to attain? NO.

But that’s not really about marriage, is it? That’s about divorce. Do I want to be DIVORCED again? NO FUCKING WAY. 

But…then the question remains. I don’t want to be divorced again, but do I want to be married? 

This is what I’ve been thinking about lately. There are things I miss about marriage. I miss having a space in someone’s life that belonged to me. I knew we’d work our lives around each other and include each other without question. It just was. We’d check in with each other before making big decisions. We’d share joy and heartbreak. We’d share sandwiches, and cars, and plans for the future. I miss that bond. I miss that comfort and safety. And, honestly, I miss that feeling of control, of knowing that I had a partner who was with me, even when he wasn’t with me, if that makes sense.

I miss those lazy weekends where we were both doing things in the house, not even talking or interacting, but we were aware of each other’s presence. There was a comfort and beauty in that kind of dance. We didn’t have to align our schedules, coordinate, or plan, because we were together. A given.

I miss that so much there are times I cry about it. I miss being a part of a whole.

But I don’t miss when a marriage goes bad. When you don’t talk to each other, when things are so broken, you don’t even fight, you just say “Sure. Okay. Things are fine.” You make do. You give up what’s important to you. You dim yourself, dull your edges, deny what’s important. I don’t miss the resentment, the lack of physical connection, the absence of a spiritual bond.

But I do miss being married, sometimes.

My kids will be done with high school in three years and I’m now trying to envision what my life will look like when they are on their own, becoming the people they need to be. 

What story do I want my life to be? Do I want to be fiercely independent, travelling at the drop of a hat, having multiple physical relationships with people that is fun in the moment, but never quite fulfilling?

That’s an easy answer for me. I don’t want that. 

I want, eventually, a second half. I want Sunday mornings with a partner. I want to watch stupid things on Netflix when we are so exhausted, we just can’t think of anything else to do. I want to know that when we talk about the calendar, we are talking about the calendar of our lives together, and not how to fit into the gaps of each other’s worlds.

I want to fight, to get angry, to talk about the hard stuff, and to love each other enough that we will do whatever it takes to find our way back to each other. Therapy. Couples’ retreat. Something. Anything that reminds us that we share a love that is deeper than resentment. 

I want someone who will love me fully, and someone that I, with wild abandon, can open my heart to, can be vulnerable with, someone I can love so much that that love becomes a ribbon that reaches out and gently wraps around my loved one’s hand, drawing us closer together. 

I’m not sure I want to be married in the traditional sense. But would I stand in front of my friends and family and tell the world that this one person is my chosen partner, that we will create a space for each other in our souls that belongs to our partner, that we will weather the years, and the disagreements, the heartache and the heart-joy together, come what may? Do I want that?

Fuck yes. 

I do. 

ABOUT TANYA EBY

This is Tanya. If you like her blog, please share it with others. Tweet it. Share it on Facebook. Text a friend. Leave a comment.

Also consider checking out her cookbook/memoir. It’s about food, but it’s also about life. And there’s A LOT of swearing in it. SWEET & SORROW.

Tanya is currently searching for an agent to represent her new thriller, and she’s started writing something else that is raw and (she hopes) beautiful.