What makes a marriage work? Watch Desperate Housewives!
So did anyone catch the latest episode of DH, when Lynette ended her almost-affair with her new chef? The last scene with her muffling her cries in the bathroom while her husband talked through the door about how much he missed her - didn’t it just break your heart a little?
Last night, Lokes and I had dinner by ourselves since he was going to be gone for three weeks starting today for work. We got to talking about loyalty and faithfulness, which really had nothing to do with him going away. It just came up.
We have a rule, Lokes and I, an understanding of sorts, that if either of us were to ‘make a mistake’, we would be honest with each other the moment ‘the mistake’ happens, because we believed, very truthfully, that our marriage and love for each other and our family, is strong enough to weather through any storm.
We are also very practical people, in our unwavering belief that human beings are flawed. Everyone makes mistakes. It is our willingness and determination (or lack thereof) to make things right that ultimately defines us and our continuing faith in each other. The husband who come cleans about his cheating, for example, because he wants to win his wife and family back, and the betrayed wife who, despite what everyone says, is willing to trust him again because he had told her the truth before she found out. Â
Take this episode of DH, for example.
Watching Lynette cry silently in the bath, mascara running down her face, the guilty tears of someone who made a mistake but not really, her desperate need to connect with a life removed from being a mother and a wife; and to observe (the superb acting by) her husband: the look of renewed hope on his face, believing that he had succeeded in chasing away the competition, the fierceness of his love and determination to keep his family together despite knowing that his wife may very well have had cheated on him - all this really touched me because it is so hard, in real life, to do the right thing. To go so close to the line and not cross it. To mourn the found and loss of passion with the wrong person, at the wrong time. To reconcile desire and morals. To try and hold on to that soft, calm voice in the storm raging in your brain while your heart beckons in deadly sirensong.
If a marriage takes work, then holding a family together takes even more. As obvious as it may sound, surprisingly few people truly understand that. Most think it all happens as it happens. That nature finds a way to weave it all together. In a way, it does, but the fabric comes a part after a while, and it is up to us to keep it together.
Knowing more than a handful of people today who are going through painful divorces, it is hard to have faith in the institution. However, watching the fictionalised dramatisation of a marriage tested by the stresses of parenting, time and temptation, it reminded me that some marriages do survive. Like that of my parents’. Like that of my in-laws’. Like that of my Koo Ma’s and my aunts and uncles back home. Loveless marriages, all of them? Hardly. Theirs is a different kind of love we young ‘uns have yet to understand. Theirs is a love tested again and again by time and temptation, by poverty and betrayal, by neglect and oppression.
And yet here they are - 30, 40, 50 years down the road, and still together. Not by divine fear. Not by pure luck. Not even by mere love. I don’t know what it is, but here’s my theory: Perhaps it is only those that have been tested the most, survive.Â
Posted in Imperfect Wife
May 11th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Kind of hitting my heart, I hope I’ve matured enough to handle all these, and I’m always willing to work on it, but the old says goes: it’s take two to tango.
I gone through a very painful divorce, last year. The only one I feel sorry about is my two young children. I can only do this much since their father insisted to leave even though I wish to put aside what he had done to me, rather, he jump into another relationship soon after our divorce. Maybe, for him, to start new is better than to reconcile. But for me, I’d rather make the existing marriage works, because if it’s not working for this time, most probably it will not for the next as well.
Again, it’s take two to tango, I can’t do it all by my own. Maybe, only until next time …
May 11th, 2007 at 1:05 am
yea it truly does. As I’d mentioned, both parties must be determined to make it work. the maturity needed to overcome selfishness, moments of weakness, moments of poor judgment, is just tremendous. much more so when children are involved. i only hope that if the time comes (i hope a small if), we are able to turn these promises to action.
May 11th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
It really does take two. And it doesn’t matter how willing one party is when the other isn’t. Especially, when the other can look you in the face and say they don’t love you that way, they are not sure if they ever loved you that way, and they love someone else more than they ever ever loved you. Because when that happens, then I guess there really is nothing to work on saving (but that is just my current experience). I believe as long as both are in it and will do whatever it takes, it can definitely work and maybe even be called “happily ever after.”
May 15th, 2007 at 12:53 am
What! Lynette almost have an affair?!!
May 15th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Jenn, I think your theory will only work if both parties still love each other. With inconsiderate, selfish characters who refuse to change, it is very easy for that love to wear down over the years, little by little, and the day comes when it is too late, because there is not enough love left for both parties to want to make it work.
What is left then is options. Some have an option to leave, because they are still young and attractive, or have a career to fall back on.
The sad ones are those left without options and end up trapped in a dead marriage.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:31 am
A&a’s mom: Hey did u know u can watch all the episodes at abc.com? Does it work in Msia?
Caprice: I think to expect romantic love to carry a marriage through the years - esp when u hv kids - is a little naive. I think that love keeps changing, growing and shrinking, fluctuating through the years, and the sooner we accept that it takes a lot of sacrifice and work and heartache to keep alive and is not always wine and roses, the sooner we can get on with enjoying the good.
U are right of course about selfish people who refuse to change. Sadly, a lot of such ppl hv kids and the kids are the ones who suffer the most, not the other spouse.
If only there was a device that detects suitability in potential parents…