Mawwiage

So, marriage, eh.

I've been skeptical about the concept for a while now. I'm not sure if it's the 50+ percent divorce rate or my family's own history with the institution, but for whatever reason, I haven't had a whole lot of trust in the idea that when two people say they're committed to each other forever it means much more than "for now."

So, what the hell am I doing being engaged?

I dunno. It seemed right.

I wish I could say that I've looked deep into my soul, into his soul, and realized that whatever things split my parents apart, or my grandparents apart, or his parents apart, just couldn't creep up on us. Except then I'd be lying, and I'd probably be stupid.

I can't see into the future. I can't imagine myself at 30, let alone 40, 50, or 65 (except perhaps to see that, given the state of our industry and what the politicians say about social security, neither of us will be retired). Who knows what will become of us.

I can say that, at this point, and for some time now, no one has made me feel more comfortable, more myself, more at peace with myself. No one knows me better, in the good ways and the bad. There's no one I'd rather spend the next 24 hours snowed in with, or the next 60 years with. We've dealt with bad things, not just good ones, and come out ok. We're not going into this blind.

I'd like to think that that's enough. In some ways, it is; it's really all I have to go on. But I'm willing to bet that a good portion of the gajillion couples who divorce also felt that way at one point or another before things headed south. And I'm willing to bet even more that an even greater portion of the people whose marriages didn't last really were the right people for each other at one point.

I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the high divorce rate. When my grandparents got divorced, my great grandmother threatened a hunger strike, so shocking was the idea of a good Jewish couple splitting up. When my parents got divorced, my great grandfather took a less drastic approach. He asked why, and when my mom told him she and my dad hadn't been happy together, he replied, "But you're married. What does that have to do with being happy?"

It's easier and more acceptable to get divorced now than when my grandmother did it, becoming something of a pioneer in the process. But what does that mean? Do people invest less in their marriages in the first place, perhaps subconsciously figuring that the weight of forever isn't really as heavy as it was when the term meant something? Or are people just as happy or unhappy as ever before, but now with options?

Maybe people nowadays change more over time, grow apart because of the possibilities that never used to exist. Surely expectations about life weren't as grand when everyone stayed in the same town, in the same line of work as the rest of the family. In a world where you may start a new career at 40 and move across the world whenever, maybe being hitched to the same person is a mildly antiquated concept.

What does all this say about marriage? Are we just not meant to be committed to the same person for most of a lifetime? Maybe the whole "'til death do us part" conceit is a hopeless fantasy. Can we adequately judge who we're going to want to stick with for the next 50 years?

I used to think it was wisest to wait as many years as possible before getting married, because the longer you're together, premarriage, the more secure you would be. I'm not sure evidence would bear that out. I also used to think that if you just made sure you were sure enough, if you just weren't foolish in any way, you wouldn't be stuck with lawyers and alimony and child custody fights 10 years down the road.

But at some point I realized things happen, people change. Would it be better to stick it out with each other no matter what, weather every storm with your commitment as the one thing you never compromise? I don't know. How could I? I'm 26, with no firsthand knowledge of the things life throws at people, of the decisions people make in the trenches. Can I really judge? If I said yes, stick with your commitment no matter what, would it really be anything more than the idealistic answer of naive youth?

I started writing this as some sort of reconciliation with the concept of marriage. But I can't seem to write myself out of a corner on this one. Now that I'm engaged, I can't say I'm any less wary of marriage, or at least the frothy sentiments surrounding it. I'm more comfortable with the most blunt, low-expectations realities, anything so as not to be too naive or wonderstruck about it - and therefore vulnerable to any potential failure lurking around the bend. It's depressing, but I'm not sure there's much of a way around it. I haven't exactly seen a lot of evidence of happy, lasting marriages, and I'm hardly one to take anything on faith, even if the statistical odds weren't stacked against it.

So I've sort of reconciled myself to never being completely comfortable with the concept of marriage. Maybe I don't have to be. All I really have to have any faith and trust in is him and me, and, in a way that is completely foreign and weird, I do. I think I know myself, and I know him. He knows himself, and he knows me. I suppose at some point all you can have is that, and maybe some faith, a commitment to work hard, and trust.

(Blackmail material probably helps too.)

As the future wife of a Jersey boy, I figure it's appropriate to invoke Springsteen here. There's a song on the first mix Rick made me that has always struck me as the most appropriate way to think about getting married. And for the record, it was "Real World," a live acoustic version, not the crappy studio thing from Human Touch.

And if love is hopeless, hopeless at best
Come on put on your party dress - it's ours tonight
And we're goin' with the tumblin' dice

Ain't no church bells ringing
Ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me and you and the love we're bringing
Into the real world