the fairy tale that so isn't

Eli and I have been married for ten years this week. I don’t know what to say about it that I haven’t already said except that looking back to ten years ago, I think we were both very naïve when we got married. You can’t know the things you’ll go through together when you’re twenty-three and making promises to love each other forever no matter what. But since that day our vows have been tested many many times.

We were such idiots when we got married. We’d had a perfect life together up to that point. Things were very simple. We hung out in bars with our friends at night, we went to the movies together whenever we felt like it, and we did the adult things too like work and make dinner and shop for toilet paper.  I remember that it was so exciting to come home each night and know that no one had to leave. We became each others’ family and it wasn’t hard at all.

We didn’t know when we got married that we’d end up moving to an isolated town in the Midwest for five years where one of us would suffer an unholy case of culture shock and never get over it. We didn’t know that we both suck with money and because of that we’d suffer significant financial stress over the years. We didn’t know that one of us would almost die one night very quickly and the other would have to stand by helplessly just watching and hoping the doctors knew what they were doing. We didn’t know that starting a family would mean going through a rollercoaster of emotions, from mourning to celebration to aftershock tremors so powerful that they would threaten everything.

In a way I feel responsible for everything difficult that we’ve had to go through in our life together. I’ve said this many times, that I am not an easy person to live with. Life with me is never calm and predictable. One day you’re living fine and you’ve established a home for yourself and begun to set down roots, and then suddenly you’re in a truck driving yourself and all of your belongings across the country with a risky itinerary and very strict time frame for establishing a new life. Two months to secure a good job and buy a house in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. This is how I do things.

Eli is easygoing. If it were up to him there would be no grand upheavals. And sometimes I wonder if he realized back then what being married to me would involve. And what I’m about to say comes from my own insecurities, because Eli has never given me a reason to doubt his love and commitment. But I never thought we’d be together this long. Every time something would happen that was difficult or painful, I expected him to leave or check out and go in search of something easier. I spent the first few years of our marriage a little checked out myself. Subconsciously thinking about what I would do in case it didn’t work out with us because I figured if I prepared myself I wouldn’t be hurt. Apparently it takes my heart one time to learn a lesson and the lesson I learned, through various experiences before I met Eli, was that you should not trust people, especially when they say they will love you forever. Each time someone disappointed me by being human I lived inside the lyrics of that hateful Alanis Morissette song where she talks about the words people say and how they become etched in your heart until they aren’t true anymore and you find yourself wondering how forever suddenly became or until I don’t love you anymore.

I say that I’m not a romantic, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fantasize about someone loving me enough that he would rather die than live in the world without me.  I am realistic enough to know that such fairytale bullshit does not exist. Especially in the real world where things aren’t always easy and bad shit happens all the time and even if you make it through there is never happily ever after because even if you miraculously don’t hurt each other constantly or have a horrible relationship that chisels away at your spirit a little bit each day, one of you is still going to eventually die.

Okay wait. That just got fucked up at the end there and I forgot what I was doing. I guess I am trying to say that am thankful this week that at twenty-three I had the sense (or probably blind luck) to pick someone to navigate this anti-fairytale with me who is really fucking great. Even ten years later. 

Comments

[jess]

amen.

[sherry]

If you're a romantic does it make it okay that I teared up a little while reading that? Because if not, I'll just blame it on postpartum hormones.

[hubs]

congratulations!

it started to sound a little like "white noise" (the book) for little bit there.

[Mallika]

Congratulations on your ten-year anniversary! I'm so happy that you two have each other.

I sometimes did exactly what you did -- think about the worst thing that could happen, so that if it does then I'd have a back-up plan and it wouldn't really hurt so much (since I'd been obsessing about it before). Sometimes I have my defenses up and take things that Ricardo says too much to heart, but those are things that are due to my own issues and nothing to do with him. I'm pretty amazed at his patience with me. There's no one else with whom I'd rather share the journey of that anti-fairytale you mentioned.

Here's to you, Eli, and a life full of love and happiness.