Marriage; The Longview

Okay my parents are going to absolutely kill me (yes I am a forty-year -old woman and I could potentially be grounded). But I’m willing to risk the consequences because I believe the message is just that important.
To say my parents had a volatile and chaotic marriage early on would be the honest truth – but I’m still totally getting grounded. One of my favorite fights they had culminated in my mother throwing my dad’s clothes out of their second story bedroom window. We lived in the city and houses were close so this was quite a show for the whole neighborhood. I remember taking my younger brother up to my grandmothers apartment when my parents were having particularly bad fights and making him kneel with me and pray to her Virgin Mary statue and picture of Saint Theresa to ask them to make our parents stop fighting.
And the worst part is I am giggling uncontrollably while writing this because 1. I’m pretty sure I contributed to my brothers atheism, 2. Now that I’m a grown up I’ve had my own awful moments that my children will be able to blog about to avenge their beloved grandparents, 3. The visual of my mom throwing clothes out of the second story window is priceless, and 4. My parents are now two of the most deeply in love people I know.
Anyone who has been in a long relationship can relate to going through those bad times. And when we go through them we sometimes feel so hopeless and alone because let’s face it when things are really terrible we aren’t even talking to our closest friends. Maybe it’s the shame, maybe it’s the fear. Whatever it is, that is the exact time we need to reach out to our support system and ask for a non-judgmental ear.
And I want to be clear that not all marriages are good and should be saved. Certainly if a line has been crossed and there’s any kind of physical intimidation I say run don’t walk to the nearest exit.
But for those unions that are in that down space at the moment because you are too tired from running your Family Inc. to remember why you liked your partner in the first place, or maybe you’ve lost yourself and are angry at everyone but mostly you for feeling empty and rudderless, or maybe you are sick of your partner leaving it all to you to fix and clean and caretake, or maybe a million other reasons why you are ready to walk out that door. But before you do, take a moment to read the poem my dad wrote about his marriage thirty-five years ago and then posted on Facebook this week to mark their forty-second wedding anniversary of what is now in my dad’s own words a “happy union.”

Hooky
It was early April warm.
The first real hint of Spring.
Breakfast was taken
At a Cambridge French cafe.
Herbal tea
Tanzanian coffee
In a glass Meliour
Yogurt with fruit
Bagels and cream cheese.
A bright stolen day was theirs.
Seven years of marriage
Two tow-headed kids
One major crisis
And now a work day that wasn’t.
For her the day brought relief with the coming Spring.
The warmth blurred
the focus on bitter years
of melancholy marital aloneness
and recent questioning:
Is this what she wants?
Set to one side and
Locked away for the day
in her subconscious
Was the recently longed for
Singleness.
The yet unproven promise
Of better tomorrows assuaged
The emptiness of lost years.
The pursuit of the waning beauty of youth.
Forgotten for the day were the
Missed opportunity and the nagging of
Too many wrong directions.
In their place came casual gentle touching
A hectic charge through
Clothes racks
Book stacks
Street noise
And the security of a days unexpected
togetherness
With lunch outdoors
At the Harvest
And a luxuriant nap
In the reborn sun.
Hooky wasn’t new to him-
Doing it together was.
For too many long days and nights
He too had known the emptiness of
Their marriage.
His misplaced priorities had built
A mounting storm of unfamiliarity
That crashed with a late summers vengeance
And violently wasted away his illusions.
Now in the fragrant first breezes of Spring
The decision to rebuild
Took Form.
He could listen to her meaning
Enjoy the unprovoked ease of the day
And see his shadow of insecurity
Fade in the new year’s sun.
By E.G. Winbourne