On this week’s This American Life, philosopher and author Alain de Botton describes marriage this way:
“Be incredibly forgiving for the weird behavior that’s going to start coming out. You will be very unhappy in lots of ways. Your partner will fail to understand you.
If you’re understood in maybe, I don’t know, 60% of your soul by your partner, that’s fantastic. Don’t expect that it’s going to be 100%. Of course you will be lonely.
You will often be in despair. You will sometimes think it’s the worst decision in your life. That’s fine. That’s not a sign your marriage has gone wrong.
It’s a sign that it’s normal, it’s on track. And many of the hopes that took you into the marriage will have to die in order for the marriage to continue. Some of the headiness and expectations will have to die.”
Host Ira Glass says this “one of the most accurate description of marriage” he’s ever heard.
This is nonsense. Complete nonsense. It need not to be this way.
Elysha and I will be celebrating ten years of marriage next month.
There has been no despair.
No unhappiness.
No doubt.
None of our hopes and dreams and expectations have died.
We have only added new hopes and dreams to our list.
Marry the best person you know. Do things together. Find new things to do together. Be honest. Don’t ever be selfish.
Ignore the words of Alain de Botton.
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Marc and I heard this podcast coming home from Vermont yesterday. He hadn’t read your comments on it. What we were struck with was similar to your feelings. What?? Live your life with someone who brings you consistent disappointment and understands your soul only 60% of the time? How perfectly horrible! However, most people (like us for example) don’t marry after they have been friends for many years, thus avoiding the crises that Botton speaks about. You and Elysha are the lucky few that have had smooth sailing since the beginning, the happiness and love you exude in these wedding pictures and when we see you together, is wonderful. Our marriage, and, from our experience, many others, do experience the pain of misunderstandings and disappointment. Where Botton gets it wrong though, is that the working through of these conflicts, can bring a marriage to a better place, one that looks more like the one you have. Weathering and learning from the disappointments is another way to grow and get to an idyllic union. Button stopping at "just accept the status quo" shocked us. Why would you do that, when the person you are most attracted to has the most to teach you about yourself. I guess the bottom line is that it isn’t either/or for me. It isn’t Botton’s way or the way that you describe. There’s a middle way – which is the one that got me to a place where I feel loved, supported and understood all of the time.
Lonely?
Despair?
Worst decision of your life?
None of these things describe my marriage, either. And I was sure to let my husband experience all of my "weird behavior" (i.e. all of my "Big Crazy") well before he even thought about proposing. We sometimes have minor misunderstandings, but I’d like to think that we fundamentally understand each other’s souls all the time.
We’ve known each other for 15 years and have been happily married for almost 12 of those. Alain de Botton’s description sounds unbearably bleak.