How does one, if one is partner in a mostly happy, largely functional marriage, characterize it?  Really. The institution. The reality. The commitment to remain.

Thanks to the May issue of O Magazine, one woman’s dissection of these very questions has Filipes, a very regular reader of O Magazine, a tad paranoid.

“Are you ’settling’ for this relationship?” Well… hmmmmm…. I don’t think so… but then again I haven’t read the article.

After boning up on the required reading I found the author made some pretty bold statements. Statements I’m betting run through most married women’s minds pretty frequently. Far more frequently than any of us would like to admit.

No question, it’s a whole lot different than we thought it would be when we accepted the offer. And yes, many days, the work of marriage is reminiscent of a job- a job with endless demands and where you feel perpetually behind… and guilty for being behind. A job where you just have to take a deep breath and when you’d rather grab the first blunt object you can find, you suck it up, turn and walk away… a job where even on a good day, a pile of used Kleenexes by the corner of the couch could send you into homicidal conniptions… a job where, while you know he is, in fact working, he is also sitting on your couch- all day.
Throw kids into the mix and yeah… all bets are off. So, as with the author in question, divorce has certainly crossed my mind- more than once… less than daily. I also realize I live in a time where it is a viable choice, an available option where the world doesn’t end. Unlike a couple of generations ago, where women often felt resigned, if not imprisoned, by their wedded fate and circumstances dictated that they remain in an unsatisfying marriage- assuming the concept of satisfaction was even permitted to rear it’s selfish head.

As a partner in a pretty well functioning relationship, the option of divorce is certainly available. I always have choices. And for now, I choose to remain in my relationship. I love him. And even when he’s standing naked before me, bits dangling, flexing his biceps and through gritted teeth asks, “Do you have tickets to the show?”, I know I’m in for the long haul.

God knows he can drive me up the wall, tearing my hair out in ragged clumps, shrieking… in tongues… but as the mature, evolved wife and mother that I’ve become, I am able to talk myself down from my stippled ceiling and we work shit out. Because we choose to. And so as to raise healthy, decent human beings and future partners in hopefully mostly happy, largely functioning relationships, themselves.

I choose this man to make a life with. To raise children with. We are partners. It’s not perfect- nowhere even remotely close. But my choice to be here, with him, despite some idealized picture of life without him occasionally frequenting my parentally baked and addled mind, doesn’t- ever- mean, I’ve settled.

So, in closing, allow me to defer to a true wordsmith, an intellectual ever knowledgeable in affairs of the heart… Kevin Costner, speaking before he left his own first wife and family, “Marriage is a tough gig…”

Pure genius….

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