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Sparkle (1)
MultitaskingMumma recently got engaged, and today, she posted about working with her future husband on a questionnaire touching on everything from daily living practices and future plans -- the sorts of things that couples should discuss before taking the vow to spend the rest of their lives together.
Our answers matched up perfectly and we rolled with laughter as we read through questions such as:
"We will wait until after marriage to have children."
FAIL.
"Toilet paper must be hung a certain way every time."
STFU!
Photo by Public Domain Photos.
It reminded me of a similar discussion I'd had with my ex-husband before we got married. I dug up the post and read with a combination of amusement and sadness -- there was no way that I could have known, staring up at Chihuly's Fiore di Como at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, how such a sure bet would come undone. But let's go back first, to the day immediately after we said "I do," at a little historic chapel in the City of Sin.
"Oh, thank God, I was afraid you were dead!" my friend Annabella screamed into my ear when I finally picked up my mobile phone.
"What?" I cracked an eye open. The clock read 4:42AM. Don't you just love people with no understanding of time zones?
Annabella wasn't fazed by my grogginess -- she jabbered right on, "I read that this guy got arrested when he ran over his new wife in Las Vegas, and I was like, OMG! It's Anaiis! I am so glad you're OK."
Later, when I was conscious, I found out the details of Katie Martindale and James Olwine's honeymoon gone so, so wrong: they got into a huge fight on their trip home from their Vegas wedding getaway and when the bride stormed out of the car, her new husband ran her over.
To love and to hold! To hit and to run!
Annabella wasn't the only one concerned. Robert, my new father-in-law, called Richard because he "just wanted to make sure you haven't run her over, son!"
"I'm sure it's not that people think he's a psycho or you guys have a crazy relationship," my mother assured me when I called her that afternoon from the lobby, where I sat staring at the ceiling, enamored of Dale Chihuly's massive Fiori di Como. "You just inspire very strong actions and reactions!"
I couldn’t help thinking about an article in the New York Times years ago about how the divorce rate was not as high as it was often reported and was, in fact, in decline. Is this because marriages last such a short time that people can simply annul their unions? Or is it that they just run each other over?
I didn't care whether it was 50 percent of marriages that end in divorce or 41. I felt like I do whenever I catch one of those really hot shows on the TV, like 24 or Lost: ugh, can't handle the suspense, must know what happens next, must wait 'til the whole show comes out on DVD so I can take a week off and watch all the seasons back to back.
I must know what happens. Since there was no way to do this, I would settle for our odds. So I did what we always do when we have a question: I hit up the oracle at Google.
Guess what! According to Jeffry H. Larson, professor and chairman of the Family and Marriage Therapy Program at Brigham Young University and author of the book Should We Stay Together?, the odds are slim at best.
There are several factors that predict marital dissatisfaction and marital success according to his "Marriage Triangle theory," which compares individual traits, couple traits and context. The success stuff is pretty typical: communication, common ground, understanding, blah, blah, blah.
The dissatisfaction indicators though? It's so us: high neurotic traits, impulsiveness, vulnerability to stress, anger, dysfunctional beliefs, dissimilarity, short acquaintanceship, premarital sex and promiscuity, cohabitation (if sporadic), younger age (mine), parental divorce and chronic marital conflict (his), family disapproval (both; well, at first, anyway).
"We're an equation for disaster!" I told my husband later as we sailed toward Hoover Dam on Lake Mead.
"We cancel each other out," Richard replied, pulling me close and kissing my forehead, oh-so-sweet.
But before I could get too smug about escaping the Marriage Triangle doom with our brand of creative mathematics, we had A Fight. On the way back to California from our Las Vegas wedding getaway, no less. How ironic.
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