Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam…‚
Classic scene from that cult classic movie that brought us the six fingered man, the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the beautiful Princess Buttercup. The line from the old man in his funny voice beginning the wedding scene of Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck.
I always found humor in this scene. Probably because I never thought I’d get married. I think it took me about seven years to finally accept I was. In the first two years together, I would find myself in the middle of a fight removing my ring (ok sometimes throwing it) and yelling that it was over. As if we were in a casual dating situation with no permanent ties. I suppose I had a combination of immaturity and commitment issues. It was never that I didn’t love my husband, it was probably more that I was afraid he would suddenly change his mind and I would be the one left watching him walk away. I found coming to a mutual agreement on things difficult. He would probably say I still do;)
Neither one of us came from divorced parents. Both of us have parents who are still married today. But for some reason, I never thought past what it would be like after you have your “wedding scene.” We had lived together for two years before getting married so it wasn’t the sudden expectations of shared spaces that caught me off guard and vulnerable. I think it was never having had to problem solve with another person.
Everyone has heard the classic wedding vows: for better or worse, in sickness or in health, until death do us part. We tweaked ours a bit to remove some of the negative things but the gist was the same. Baby, with this ring you are stuck with me.
The concept seems easy enough. You say toe-may-toe I say ta-ma-toe but let’s agree to disagree. I’ll love you when you leave the toilet seat up as long as you love me when I leave my feminine hygiene boxes on the bathroom floor. We fall easily into roles like you are in charge of the trash removal and dog poo pick up and I’ll field the laundry, grocery shopping and toilet scrubbing. Everything looks good on paper. But the thing about paper is it can be easily ripped, written and re-written on, or crumbled up and tossed out.
No one explained to me that those vows are figurative, not literal. I was pretty ready to get to the reception, throw on flip flops and just celebrate. I knew we agreed to spend our lives together but truthfully, I couldn’t fully understand what that meant.
These are the things I’ve learned about those vows:
1)For better is not just celebrating when you get a raise or for worse kissing when you forget to brush your teeth. It is learning how to somehow rebound after you get to the stage where you have fall into a rut or stuck in a moment you can’t get out of. We all have our bad days or months or even years. It is knowing the right combination of giving space and intervening. It is letting someone change for the better and accepting them for the worse.
2)In sickness or in health means more than recovering from the flu or holding someone’s hair while they are hungover after a big night out on the town. It is holding each others hand when your child is in the hospital getting oxygen. It is crying tears of joy together at the birth of your new baby girl and screaming tears into each others shoulders when you no longer see a heartbeat. It is hugging each other other when the results come back negative and one day it will be holding hands when it is too hard to say the final goodbye.
3)The last part of the vows sounds pretty self explanatory. But as my husband and I share more together I am learning that last part is not just about our own deaths. Each time we lose someone or something else of value in lives it pushes on the marriage. I have seen in others that this can be the make or break piece. There is a large part of suffering that goes along with death, before, during and after. Everyone grieves different and accepting that without anger, fear or blame is difficult.
Marriage is fun. It is remarkable to sit and look back at all we’ve built together. But it is work. We don’t wake up everyday liking each other. Sometimes we don’t go to bed liking each other either. But every moment I’ve learned that we love each other. It’s not always easy and it’s funny to realize that one day I’ll look back at today and refer to it as in “our early days.” If we are lucky.
My grandparents used to still hold hands after 50 years of marriage. Of course, my grandfather would sometimes take his hearing aids out to not hear every word and my grandmother would sometimes be frustrated at my grandfathers passive nature but they took care of each other. They had love. I hope in 50 years my grandkids will be saying the same about us.
So yes, ma-wage is what brings us together. But learning and love is what keeps us here. It may not be the stuff of romance novels. But it is ours.
About jill
Speak Your Mind