Married (Happily) With Issues. ⇒
27 February 2010, mid-morning
It sounds like she’s both over thinking things and trying to sabotage her marriage. An interesting read regardless.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Just spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out where I found this article. Read it all day between other things.
I really enjoyed reading it, though I don’t think I liked the author that much. She does seem to be seeking to implode her marriage.
I realized in the course of reading it that I have gotten a lot older. Mostly because I was nodding my head and understanding it.
It’s been a rough couple of years. I was thrust into a relationship with someone I should never have been with because we got pregnant three months into just fooling around. It was not dissimilar to an arranged marriage, trying to live with this person I would never have chosen for the last two years. We gave it a good go but couldn’t make it work.
And I find myself wondering more and more about people’s marriages. I wonder if other men feel like they are being broken down, forced to admit being wrong just to keep the peace, feeling their blood pressure rise the moment their spouse arrives.
I like to believe that I can find someone with whom these are sometimes issues rather than all the time issues. Because right now I cannot imagine being married. The last thing I want to hear at this point is that I am supposed to care about something I don’t. That I should sacrifice the thousand small joys in my life to accomodate the way someone else grew up.
Shima once said that white guys can’t date brown girls because we just don’t get the family thing. Speaking as someone forced to relocate two thousand miles because his daughter’s mother (of Mexican descent) couldn’t fathom raising her child away from her parents, I am inclined to agree. I had wanted to argue the point when Shima said it, but damn she was right. The cultural differences in the approach to extend family are damned near insurmountable.
Rambling. Done now.
by Ben on February 27 2010, 9:01 pm #
I am scared of how long that would have been if not typed on my iPhone.
by Ben on February 27 2010, 9:02 pm #
Damn. That was epic. This is why I leave comments open.
I enjoyed the article. I’m not entirely sure what her goal in writing it is. I agree she comes off really bad. (I wonder if we feel this way because we are men.) I read the article ages ago, but forgot to post it here. (One of the few problems with using Instapaper I guess. I need a better system for tracking what to post.)
I certainly think mariages can work. I’m probably biased, in that I quite like my mariage. I don’t think your mariage should be a battle. It shouldn’t feel like one big sacrifice. And if it does, it’s probably not going to work out well. You’re just going to end up resenting each other.
I think where your situation differs from an arranged mariage is that people go into an arranged marriage knowing what’s up. It’s not something sprung on them. (Well, usually.) I think they work well enough in cultures where they prominent because people are raised with the sorts of skills you need to navigate such a marriage.
And yeah, I don’t think I could marry someone who wasn’t close with their family. Or willing to put up with being close with mine. I have a gajillion cousins whose company I enjoy.
I also wrote this on my iPhone. Hah.
by ramanan on February 28 2010, 8:21 pm #
the converse of Ram‘s comment about arranged marriages is the “love conquers all” idea. Part of it is hype from movies and stuff, but I think (North American) society in general overemphasizes it.
I think a lot of people don’t want to believe that relationships can hinge on very mundane, unromantic things. They want to believe that money or careers or distance (or family) are trivial in the face of True Love.
I didn’t love the article (a bit scattered and didn’t make a strong conclusion), but I was glad I read it. There was definite food for thought.
Ben — I don’t think that accepting cultural differences is mutually exclusive with believing in marriage, or wanting it for yourself. I think finding someone with whom you agree on those cultural issues is important, probably necessary. My fiancée and I always say that what drew us to each other was “similar family values”.
and — and I hope this is comforting — I don’t think not being able to imagine being married is a bad thing. I too don’t think you should sacrifice your small joys for someone else. Feeling like marriage is necessarily equivalent to high blood pressure is a good way to know one shouldn’t get married.
and the absence of that feeling might be a good indicator for getting married.
by Weiguo on March 1 2010, 12:06 am #