How do we do “I do” today?

By Brixton
de Cervantes Saavedra

The subject of marriage—or rather, divorce—has been a subject of so many people’s conversations recently that I’ve lately been thinking and talking about the idea quite a bit more than usual. In one of these conversations I was laughed at by a divorced person when I stated my shorthand reason why I have never been, and probably never will be, married: my standards of what marriage is supposed to represent are impossibly high. “You’ll see,” he said, cryptically. I’ll see what? He would not say, but kept smirking at me.

I felt like I’d been accused in advance of selling out, as if the day will come when I will be so swept away by romance, or, alternatively, so lonely, that I will compromise my beliefs and tie the knot on a whim. I, of course, resent this (possible) accusation, belittling my own knowledge of the strength of my own convictions. But you see, what my mocking friend failed to get to know about those convictions is that I harbor absolutely no notion that a marriage is built on love, passion, and romance.

It is something that I think our elders understood, and that understanding is known more keenly the further one goes back in history. Marriage is an arbitrary negotiation, and relatively modern notions of romance, if anything, have been its antithesis.

Marriage is an agreement. And that is all. Sometimes people keep those agreements, but often, they don’ t. I have always been interested in the question of why they don’t, because, growing up in an era that saw a sudden and marked increase in divorce rates, I always thought to myself that I’d be better than that. I never saw myself as a person who would give such a thing as marriage a “try,” or my “best effort,” or my blind “faith.” Rebelling against the new throwaway culture of the divorce trend, I instead formed the belief that if you’ re not going to see a marriage through, no matter what, you just shouldn’t do it. If you don’t know yourself well enough to know if you will see it through and are just hoping your life with someone will more or less unfold the way you’ve seen it unfold with others, you just shouldn’ t do it.

When I was 10 years old and was informed that my parents were getting divorced due to my father’s infidelity at the same time my sister and her husband were considering a divorce due to her infidelity (and all this within a month after my elder brother’s wedding!), I amended my childish ideals: Cheating is grounds for a swift divorce. As it turned out, neither my parents, nor my sister and her husband, decided to divorce, but I still keep my amendment. In fact, now that I have experiences with relationships of my own, I have brought my total amendments to two: the only justifications for divorce are infidelities committed by oneself or one’ s partner, either in mind or body, and abuse of any kind (emotional, verbal, psychological, physical, spiritual, chemical). However it may be defined, abuse is out of the question. Everything else is agreed to when vows are taken: varying moods, periods of rejection, differences in private habits in the living space, decreased libido, changes in the appearance of the body, and even boredom.

I would not deny that my views are rather unromantic, but it is my honest belief that a marriage agreement can be successful based on knowing just a few things about someone. For me it is the compatibility of our politics/ethics (how do they treat themselves, others and the world?); the compatibility of our communication styles (how do they express anger, disappointment, frustration, or even any of their positive desires—do they pout, do they throw things, lash out with their body, abuse alcohol or drugs, are they manipulative, passive-aggressive, do they lie to get what they want, do they withdraw or withhold—or do they communicate, do they talk, do they write, do they express with some kind of genuine symbolic action?); and, finally, the compatibility of our social values (are others means to an end or ends in themselves, do they objectify others, will others be a constant source of temptation, do they believe seeing others in a sexualized/objectified way is harmless, in general, or to our relationship?). Once I know these kinds of things about a person—and yes, I happen to enjoy their company and conversation and find them attractive in a myriad of ways—I am willing to give the long-term relationship a go. Perhaps oddly, though, I don’t treat a long-term pairing as a “test,” but rather, the real deal.

This practice may seem shocking to some, but why treat a long-term relationship any other way? Unless you are against marriage as a matter of principle, if you’ ve decided a person is worth living with and dealing with for years on end, what are you saying by not marrying other than “I reserve the option to keep looking,” or “I reserve the option to have an out whenever I feel like it,” or “You just don’t seem good enough right now”? Not only does it seem nonsensical to me to put years into a relationship only to have it dissolve for reasons that, had a marriage agreement existed, might be attempted to be overcome, but it seems with those kinds of reservations in place, a long-term relationship could hardly be expected to thrive. When I am in a long-term relationship, I assume it can go only one of two places: marriage (unless they are opposed to the institution on principle, which I would than call “life-partnership”) or a breakup. Well, who likes a breakup, especially one that comes after a long and heavy investment? I’ d be inclined to say nobody. So why bother with a long-term relationship at all, if a breakup is a likely conclusion? If you’ re not committed to avoiding the breakup at all costs, then you should just keep shopping. If you are committed to avoiding a breakup at all costs, well then, how is that different than playing married?

Some time ago my best friend’s girlfriend of eight years broke up with him. I found out about it when my phone rang at 5 a.m. and all I could hear him saying over and over in between the tears was “It hurts.” And it sounded like it really did, so I listened to him for two hours. Many, many months after he started to lift himself back up again somewhat, he confessed to me that if I had not answered my phone, he would have killed himself. He referred to me always afterwards as the person who saved his life. Poor thing. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been for him. And I simply will never understand what makes a person walk away after eight years. He feels sure that she would not have done it if he’d “grown up” and married her and had the children with her that she wanted but he thought could wait for later. So, why not walk away at two years, or four? Why put in eight?! Well, people get older, sure, and they may feel time is running short and they’ d better move on, but still I believe it is irresponsible to invest that much time with someone if you can’t even get something big squared away in the beginning like whether or when in your lives to have children. Here: I already have a child; I don’t want to have any more children of my own. Now any future partner will know this. They won’t wake up surprised eight years from now when I decide I don’t want to fight about that anymore. I think even my friend’s ex understands now how easy it is to lay your cards on the table right away—she had a baby nine months later.

In contrast, I look at some people who are or have been married. I know two outstanding men, brilliantly talented, both very handsome, good people to the core, but both claiming to possess challenging idiosyncrasies, personalities or behaviors. I’ll take their word for it. One is divorced, and the other, I just learned, faces a divorce very soon. One was married four years, the other just two. And it makes me so curious: Why did these marriages occur at all? It seems to me that you can calculate the levels of love and passion and romance and shared interests and even bonding over the successful overcoming of difficult circumstances, and decide that it all equates to a pairing that is worth preserving for all time in the institution of marriage—and still be quickly and horribly wrong. Why does one couple stay together unmarried for eight years, while another gets married and stays together for only two? Who should we say were the more committed individuals? Who was more or less in love? Who took advantage of whom, who did not provide for the needs of whom? Who was impatient or intolerant, who was realistic, who was ignorant, who was overhopeful, overtraditonal or overmodern? I do not know any of these things; there are probably no answers to such questions. The only thing I can think is that wouldn’t be me. Easy to say from the outside, I suppose, and perhaps that is why my friend laughed at me when he said I’ll “see.” But it is not that I haven’t been committed in a forever sort of way (I was once engaged), and it is not that I have never been seriously asked (three times, in fact), but that in all cases it was felt by one or both of us that it wasn’t going to result in 50th anniversaries, and so no more than one year of our lives was given to the idea. Easy enough to live with, I’d say, especially by comparison to how long all these could have been dragged out.

A best friend of mine was visiting from out of state recently and updated me on what her parents have been up to the last year or so since I saw her last. She spoke of their divorce, about two years ago, so casually that I had to admit that I still felt totally crushed by it. They were married 22 years, and after a very challenging start, spent most of their marriage getting along well, having great times together, and still enjoying to the very end a very active, desirous and monogamous sex life with each other. Those two really gave me hope. But, suddenly (even according to them), they decided to call it quits and go do something else. Just like that. They didn’t want to do the work anymore, at least not for each other. I still shook my head and asked why. My friend put it well, though, I think: It wasn’t a waste of time, they had a good life together, great times, and heck, she wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. Fair enough I suppose. But to me, it still underlines the arbitrariness of the keeping of the marriage agreement. People either are, or they are not, going to respect it. My impossibly high standard, I am sure, is the trust that I would have to have for someone to not break such a promise. Not clouded by love or romance or passion or youth or the drama of shared pains, I would have to trust that in a sober and bored moment we could say to each other, “Yeah, even when there’s not a whole lot to talk about anymore, even when we’re wrinkled and soft and maybe no longer sexually attracted to each other, even when you’re driving me crazy or I feel detached and someone else at work is starting to look not half bad, even when the kids are gone, or we don’t know what to do with ourselves after retirement, sure, I’ll stick this life out with you.”

As an “oddball” for being the child of still-married parents, another person I know put it this way: People nowadays seem to treat marriage and divorce as just sweaters that can be quit, or returned to the store if they don’t fit right. But that is what dressing rooms are for. Go in, try it on, see if it fits. Is it comfortable? Will it work for you? If not, then you put it back and move on. But once you make the decision to leave the store with that sweater, there are no returns, no exchanges. So the elbow has a hole in it after years of your writing with it against the desk, do you throw out the sweater? Some people do, but we should patch it. Why throw something out that you have spent many winters with, just because it has a flaw? Mending can be done, and where there once was a hole, that area would be stronger.

Ironically, perhaps, this belief in the inviolable sanctity of marriage has not proved to lend itself to saying “I do” to anyone. My standards may be high, but they are simple. I think grandma and grandpa knew: Having someone to share a laugh with during Johnny Carson is better than the best you can do; it’ s simply the goal in and of itself. It’ s not much on the surface, and it isn’t romantic, but it’s a testament to stamina and endurance, tolerance and patience, promises kept and preserved. And most of all, it’s a testament to friendship. What more are people trying to get out of the contract than that?

Special thanks to Tim Lupfer for his inspiration and felicitous words.