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As most people close to me know, I have a verrrry testy relationship with marriage. Some aspects of deeply trouble me: its religious foundations, its patriarchal history of a woman being ceded by one man to another, even — I’ll admit it — its permanence. For me, marriage represents a certain end to a narrative possibility.
On the other hand, there are obvious tax and legal benefits to marriage, and a new study comes out every other week showing it’s good for your health, and Mike and I love each other and live no differently than our married friends — and now that we have two kids and are stuck with each other for the rest of our lives ANYWAY. . .
So in theory, I’m down. But in practice? Haven’t been able to touch that shit with a Vera Wang gown with a 10-foot train. I’m talking one bad track record here, folks. SHITTY! That first guy I told I’d marry? Didn’t do it! Second guy I said the same thing to? LIES! Third guy I took a ring from and gave a yes to? He’s still waiting for me to set a damn date!
Marriage: I’ve got a problem with “follow-through.”
(Not that Michael’s relatives give a good goddamn. They’re making me Mrs. Ortlieb whether my little feminist, God-bashing ass likes it or not.)
So what’s my problem with marriage these days? I’ll you EXACTLY what the problem is: Jenny Sanford and Elizabeth Edwards. And if those two women don’t shut the fuck up already, I am NEVER gonna walk down that damn aisle.
This week has been something of a perfect storm of Sanford/Edwards news, what with word of John Edwards potentially admitting paternity of his mistress’s child, but I’ll start with Jenny Sanford because just when I thought everything that had been said on it had, she went and lost her fucking mind. For those of you living under a rock the past few months, Jenny’s husband, Mark Sanford, South Carolina governor, skipped out on business for four days and was said to be wandering the Appalachian Trail but was instead discovered below the equatorial belt with his Argentinian mistress. He later explained to the AP that he did it because he would die “knowing that I had met my soulmate” — harsh words for his wife of 20 years to hear, no doubt, but what she did next, and what she continues to do, is what baffles me.
Granted, I’ve never been married. And as far as I know, I’ve never been cheated on. But I can certainly imagine the torment, and the grief, and the embarrassment, and the rage. I can imagine feeling horribly unpretty and blaming him for that, and hating the other woman as much as I hated him and then remembering he was the liar. I like to think I’m empathetic enough to place myself in both Elizabeth and Jenny’s politician’s wife pumps and even feel the compounded humiliation that comes with all those years of parading yourself as the “model family,” of having to smile even in the midst of the media feeding frenzy and it’s all because of who he is and the son-of-a-bitch wouldn’t even BE who he is if it weren’t for you.
I can even understand the media envy: that lying, cheating bastard is lead story, top-of-the-fold, giving every anxious microphone and camera his version of events, you at his side with a limp hand in his and a practiced look of unity. And too, you’ve got Barbara and Katie and Diane and that toady Ann Curry all wanting “your side of the story,” when you know that really means the public’s hungry for some blood on the highway and can’t wait to see the woman scorned, but you’ve got a lot of capital invested in this marriage and frankly in his career, so you say your piece — for his political office, and for your own mental health — and that’s the end of it.
Or in theory, that should be the end of it, which is where Jenny and Elizabeth totally go fucking with my head. First, Jenny poses for Vogue and grants an interview in which she expresses relief that she doesn’t have to deal with midlife crises like her husband’s because “I know my legacy is my children. I don’t worry about that.” And this week, Jenny
