You know they say marriage is hard work. That is crap. I know hard work. (I've worked with hard work, hard work is a friend of mine.) If it were hard work, I could do it. If it were work, it'd have a goal, and a deadline, and a set pattern of behavior I could follow to accomplish the goal. "Hard work" suggests that a happy marriage is attainable by putting in some effort. "Honey, you are a controlling jackass." "Well, you're an insecure bitch." "Hmm, lets work on that."
If people would say "Marriage is flailing about trying to keep your head above water and clawing the eyes out of the other person" then that would be accurate. "Work" my ass.
For example, Gary and I went out to have fun. We finally settled on a plan to go downtown and listen to music. Just walk down the strip of clubs downtown. I was thinking we'd hold hands (which we did), peek in some bars (which we did), and LISTEN TO SOME FREAKING MUSIC (which we did not). We peeked, and at every bar or club Gary said, "I would feel uncomfortable in there. Those are just kids in there. It's dark. It's loud." Yes! And there's music! Be a man and walk IN.
But no, we did not. And when I'm in a relationship when I am the most goal-driven one, you know the other person must be an extreme case. He tried saying "But I don't care so much about going into the clubs, what I want to do is just be with you," which worked for him in the past but I was having none of it.
So the ensuing fight just pointed out the LIE that marriage is hard work. It's more like walking to a goal, seeing what happens, and blindly finding a way to not kill each other. That's pithy, isn't it?
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