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Sixteen

Myths about

Marriage

1. There is one person, somewhere out there, that you were destined for.

2. Everlasting bliss is possible if you find and marry that person.

3. Watch television dramas and sitcoms and lots of romantic-comedy movies to get an idea of what you’re in for when you get married.

4. If your marriage is mediocre, you must get out of your marriage if you happen one day to meet that one person you were destined for.

5. Beauty generally determines the quality of the marriage: ugly people have ugly marriages, ordinary people have ordinary marriages, gorgeous people have gorgeous marriages, and movie stars have movie-star marriages.

6. For marriage to be blissful, a wife must be thin, busty, sweet, beautiful, and nubile. A husband can be anything—ugly, hairy, smelly, fat, annoying, and rude—just as long as he is wealthy, witty, occasionally sweet, and “good in bed.”

7. Marriage is only one option, no better or worse than living together with your partner or having casual sex on a regular basis; but, should you choose to get married:

8. You must live together before you get married.

9. “Fidelity” has to do with stereo equipment.

10. Lasting romance and lots of sex are the essential ingredients that will keep your marriage alive.

11. Love has reasonable conditions and limits, much like your relationship with your auto mechanic: as long as you get what you want and the price is not too high, it doesn’t hurt to stick with what you’ve got.

12. If you aren’t having passionate, life-changing sex every time you’re in bed together, something is wrong with the relationship, i.e. you probably married the wrong person, and you should consider getting a divorce.

13. When the romance is gone, so is the marriage, and you should get a divorce.

14. Marriage is supposed to satisfy your needs. It should not inhibit you from achieving your goals for your education, your career ambitions, and being all that you are meant to be, and if it ever does, you should get a divorce.

15. Prolonged, difficult, unresolved differences are best solved with a divorce.

16. Your first marriage can be considered a “starter marriage,” a learning experience, and you should expect to get divorced at least once.

I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are

and what we are doing and what we ought to do.

—Marilynne Robinson,

The Death of Adam