On Marriage

When I laid down on my quarantine cot last night and contemplated what words to use to describe Beloved Husband's any my thirty-first anniversary, I was a bit at a loss. Sometimes, when there are too many possible words, the simplest route is to choose the small ones -- a description of the ordinary, of just the facts. When one is so very close to a situation, it is easier to write about the trees rather than about the whole forest. Sometimes even picking an individual tree as a starting point is nearly impossible. 

Occasionally, a theme can provide structure: for example, Pandemic marriage. As I sit here in the early hours of daylight today, after a night of COVID-induced sleepless ruminations, let's take a deeper dive, shall we?

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The Pandemic has been a crucible for so many marriages. So many complicating factors: close-quarters lockdowns for extended periods of time, job and money uncertainty, illness, caretaking, worry about extended family members, political polarization, and more. Some of these factors did not have as significant an impact for us, because this is a seasoned marriage that has already survived years of complexity, including the birth, growth, and near-launching of multiple offspring; career changes; moves; financial ups and downs; illness and death of elderly extended family members; good times, bad times, and all the times in between. We are fortunate, too, in that work has continued essentially uninterrupted throughout the Pandemic, and has provided an outlet for productivity and consistent income. Nevertheless, there have still been some challenges in the Pandemic. 

In the Pandemic, how does a person individually go about his or her life as fully as possible, while minimizing the impact of one's own activity on the spouse? How much socializing, travel, even in-person-work-meetings, is an acceptable level of risk? Acceptable to whom? What if "acceptability" varies among spouses? And when the Pandemic virus inevitably comes home to roost, what happens then? What caretaking must be given, what taking-over-of-the-ill-spouse's-activities should be done? Who shepherds the plague-stricken Offspring through the health care system? Who ensures the smooth running of the household in the face of illness, and is it different from in times of health?

And so we see marriage through a particular lens: contemplating how one's actions may impact another person's life, and contemplating how supporting that person may impact one's own life. Marriage is to think not only of oneself, but of another.  Obligations and promises: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Choices made, every day, to uphold those vows. This is why it is often referred to as "building a life together": brick after brick of daily mundane decisions, paths so intertwined as to render it difficult on occasion to pinpoint the boundaries of each individual's wants and needs within the intersections. 

The biggest challenge: to remain an individual within the partnership. To be a whole person, not just a spouse. To tend to those obligations and promises of marriage, without being defined by them or consumed by them. 

Through marriage, we each learn not only about the other, but also about our individual selves. What do I want? What do I need? What will bring me greatest fulfillment? And how do I find those things, as I move through life in co-orbit with my spouse?

Day by day, step by step, on we go. Through the Pandemic, and beyond. 

"A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time." - Anne Taylor Fleming