Love, Honor and Cherish? Not Specific Enough.

I spent time with a friend this weekend and it was full of good sweet fun but also some very deep conversations.  Because I’m deep ya’ll.

Squirrel!  Did Swamp Ass have that baby yet?

Sorry I digressed.

One such conversation was about the concept of remarriage.

 I am fearful of that.

Sometimes you read things that have such a profound meaning for you because of events in your own life.  Years ago, as I was recognizing my unhappy feelings and thinking about my marriage,  I read in a Richard Russo novel,  “Bridge of Sighs”, one character’s belief about marriage.

Matrimony, she explained,  was  based on two fallacies, both real doozies.  The first was the ridiculous notion that people knew what they wanted.  There was no evidence in support of this contention and never had been, but they seemed to enjoy believing it anyway, blinded as they were by love and lust and hope, only the last of which sprang eternal.  The second fallacy, built on the shifting sands of the first, was equally seductive and even more idiotic- that what people thought they wanted today was the same thing they’d want tomorrow.

good book

I do believe that people grow and change.  And if they don’t, I don’t want to know them.  When I became unhappy in my marriage, one of my friends, MB, who is very very, very wise, told me that she thinks marriages fail when one person is growing and their interests are changing and the other makes no effort to keep up.  She tells me stories of her sister, a high powered attorney with the EPA, and her husband, also an attorney and not a dumb man, who have been married 20 years.  They have a very honest and open relationship (a second marriage for both) and every once in a while, her sister hollers to him,  “Bill!  I’m getting bored!  You need to get interesting and keep up or we are going to have a problem!”

I believe that being boring is bad for a relationship y’all.

In addition, I think that most people are innately selfish.  Or maybe that is just people I know.  But that bothers me.  The other night at The Boy’s ball game, the balls were flying and hitting parked cars.  Stanley (sweetly) said to me, “If you give me your keys I’ll move your car when I move mine”.  And I gave it 5 minutes before I looked over but I knew what I would find.  He moved his car first just like I knew he would.  He would always have moved his car first.  Married/Divorced made no difference. Taking care of me or my needs was absolutely always second.If you need further evidence or if some bitches are thinking that I am too hard on the guy; take this.  When I went into labor at home the night Merlot came into the world, I was huffing and puffing, sitting on a freakin towel, as he drove me to the hospital and he pulled though the drive through line at a restaurant.  He said, “I am going to be very hungry if I don’t do this, I’m sure you don’t mind”.

 OK.  I’ll probably eat sometime tomorrow and something that weighs near 8 lbs is trying to pass through my vagina at this very moment, but by all means, don’t hurry.

Cheeseburger my Ass!

For Real.

He would sacrifice me to the Gods everyday of the week and twice on

Sundays if it made life more convenient for him.

No, if I ever get married again, I want my wedding vows (and those made to me) to be different this time.  BTW, these go both ways.  I want to love someone so selflessly that I can say and mean the exact words back.  Forget love, honor and cherish.  They are not near specific enough.

 This is what someone must pledge to me (and vice versa) for me to get remarried.

Vow, I promise to kiss you passionately every single day.  Even if that means sweetly stopping you while you are multitasking and diverting your attention to my lips.  (I really think that when people stop kissing, you’ve taken the fork on the road to Nowheresville.)Vow, I promise to take your feelings into consideration in whatever choices I make every day.  Vow, I promise to talk to you every day and to give you access to what is in my head.Vow, I promise to always keep you safe.  Vow, I promise to always appreciate you and to let you know that nothing is more important in my life than what we have.Vow, I promise everyday to look deep into your eyes and tell you how beautiful you are.  (OK, that might be a stretch but this is my party.)

Vow, I promise never to forget how empty and desolate my life was without you.

Vow, I promise every single day to try to make you giggle.

I think that if people woke up everyday committed to doing those things, there wouldn’t be room for disrespect, or a lack of passion or a need to go outside of the marriage to get their needs met, physical, emotional or otherwise.

Of course it would help if people would pick up their own shit but I’m a realist.

Here is me.