Tonight at dinner we were discussing divorce. I don’t remember how it came up; all I know is that we went there. The conversation started innocently enough. Well, maybe there was some guilt in there…mainly mine.
I was in trouble. Why? Simply: I hadn’t acknowledged that today is the anniversary of my engagement to my wife. For the newbies in the house: yes, this becomes an anniversary to celebrate. There will be more, trust me. As does occur from time to time, I might have forgotten to mention it, hence, I was in trouble.
When I finally told my boys what makes today special to us, my wife added, “We’ve been making each other crazy for…years.” She and I had a good laugh. After all, how else do you explain marriage? My boys didn’t find it that funny. In fact, my oldest said, “Ohhh…is that why so many people get divorced? They spend all that time driving each other crazy?” Sincere.
Crap. We stepped in it.
You can only try desperately to back-pedal in these situations, so that’s what we did. We explained all kinds of stuff, going off on tangents about the politics of marriage in medieval times and non-industrial societies, the ways in which marriages bound clans and kingdoms and nations, the status of women in pre-industrial society and the post 1970’s “Women’s Lib” movement…normal dinner conversation for a boy approaching 10 and his younger brother who is halfway to 6. We intellectualized them into distraction.
Or so we thought.
It’s at the end of the discussion that my youngest weighs in on divorce:
“Do you know what I think happens? I think that people are all swe-e-e-e-t an’ stuff before they get married because they want to get married. Then I think after they get married they aren’t good any more. That’s what I think.”
That about sums it up. Maybe it doesn’t exactly explain divorce, but I think he nailed the crux of most marital problems right on the head.
Maybe it’s about time for a little more sweetness.
Illuminate Possibilities 