Today I heard a Christian marriage advocate talk about Christian marriage being the best way to be married. He said a lot of things about how tension in marriage is a real good thing, and I thought about how I think that is horseshit. Christians often subscribe to Christianity and do all they can to behave in that Christian way, which is to say, they stop being real people (I should know. I did this for a very long time.) The big problem with this is when “real” goes out the window, so does the honesty.
Christian marriage. I say, “beware.” Some of these marriages are really bad, and the way I know is because they’re all getting divorced just as much as those who aren’t in Christian marriages. Take the Christianity out of it and do this instead—ask yourself this question:
Do I like the person I married? Do they like me? Do I want to be with them? Do they want to be with me?
That’s all. The end. Just do that. If the answer is no, you’ve got some decisions to make. Because we should be married to a person we want to be married to and who wants to be married to us. How about that? No Jesus making it possible or God condoning this or that and forcing you to be together even though it’s a terrible fit. Just a good ole fashioned desire to be with someone you want to be with.
Life is short. Got it? SHORT. Marry the person you like. (And again…who likes you.)
The end.
Bye.

PS… There’s this thing I like to call the “ragged finish line fifty years into the future.” This is something Christians love to make a thing of. “How long can we stay married even if we’re miserable?” They think there’s great honor in it. They think it’s what God wants. They think they’ll win something if they stick it out. Spoiler alert: there’s no medal waiting for you if you make it through that cesspool of a marriage. You’ll just have been miserable for a real long time, that’s all. I mean…congratulations?
PSS or PPS… (I can never remember). If you’re going through a rough patch in your marriage but mostly things have been good…stick with it. Keep changing YOU and see what happens. Working on you is the true key to happiness. However, if you’re personal “rough patch” has been going on for years and years with no end in sight…maybe reevaluate. Especially if what you’ve always wanted is a partner you enjoy and who enjoys you.
PSSS… (That’s not a whisper. It’s a new brand of PS that means more PS’s.) You might be the asshole in your relationship. If so, you should figure that out quickly before they are done with you. Ask yourself, “Am I a good person to be married to?” If the answer is “no” or “probably not,” get help immediately.

Or, there’s always the chance that you are BOTH assholes with no intention of changing. If that’s true, stay married and let the assholery commence. Waller around in it and enjoy yourselves, I suppose.
P-ESS-ESS… (There’s more? Yep.) If you got married right out of puberty and your marriage is good, you got lucky. I’m serious. We don’t know our heads from our asses in our early twenties, though I’ve seen it work out beautifully for people, which is awesome. No hard feelings. But many of us who married young didn’t know what the eff we were doing. We didn’t know what we needed in a partner. (Apparently, I needed a man. Who knew? ) As humans, we are ever evolving. So the question becomes, can we do that together? Or do we even want to? Because you don’t actually have to, ya know. You’re allowed to get divorced. You’re allowed to move on.
I want to be married to someone I want to be married to, and who wants to be married to me. If they don’t, I have no desire to make them stay in a relationship that doesn’t work for them. Or to bend myself in such a way that I compromise, in a very debilitating and damaging way, the person God created me to be. That’s no good. We can do better than that. We’re allowed to do better than that.
Lastly… (And by “lastly” I just mean, here comes more about marriage from someone who has no credentials whatsoever in marriage therapy…and also, someone who is divorced. So, listen up!) if you decide to start over; that is, if you decide that your marriage isn’t working for you and you want something else for your life, expect ridicule, scorn, disrespect, pity, accusation…all of those things and more, ESPECIALLY from Christians. It seems to be part of the bargain. Shouldn’t be. But is. They will, quite literally, act as if you’ve lost your mind. They’ll chat with their friends about how sad it is that you’ve gone crazy—how you’ve singlehandedly screwed up everyone’s life (as if you’ve ever had that kind of power).
Listen to me…this is where you must dig deep. This is where you must find that something within you that knows the truth. Because they can’t know anything for you, even if they think they can. And I’m not kidding when I say that these are not people to be around…probably ever. If you do seek their counsel, they will do all they can to convince you that their way for them is also the way for you. But it’s not. And you’ll know this because you’ve already dug deep and found that something within you that knows the truth. You don’t need for them to understand. They’re not going to understand. YOU understand, which is all you need. Their lack of understanding is something you can live without unless you tell yourself otherwise. So, don’t. This is YOUR LIFE, not theirs. Get a therapist and learn how to stand up for yourself. (This is one of my biggest weaknesses…maybe one of yours too. So, figure out how to get over it because this will solve almost all your problems in life.)
P SUPER S… “Marriage is hard work.” I hear this all the time. I don’t think it has to be…not consistently. I think it is hard SOME-times. But the idea that we’re suffering through this thing called marriage just doesn’t sit right with me. It never has. I think marriage/partnership in its truest sense, is being with someone you like being with. Oversimplification? I don’t think so. We can complicate the hell out of it by telling ourselves it’s supposed to be hard because that’s how we grow, blah blah blah. But it’s not SUPPOSED to be hard. It IS hard…sometimes. Okay fine. But it is not supposed to be. What I’m saying is, “hard” is not the point of marriage. Marriage is a choice to be with someone you like…someone you enjoy. That’s it. When hard things come from the outside of your relationship, it absolutely can make things difficult in your marriage. THIS is when we rally, stay, and work it out. But when it seems there is a never-ending barrage of disappointment, pain, and difficulty INSIDE the marriage or BETWEEN you and your partner, I think one of two things is happening: either you are not a good fit for each other and shouldn’t be together, or you (or they) are not a good partner (for a myriad of reasons…selfish, asshole, unrealistic expectations, unresolved life issues, etc.) and you (or they) need therapy.
Okay…it’s time to end this.

If this post has resonated with you, have a coffee date with a trusted friend—someone who doesn’t have all of the answers for your life—and discuss it. Find out if it means anything for you. Maybe it means you need to change. Maybe it means they do. Maybe it means it’s time to move on. Because listen, as far as we know, we have only this one life, and I think that life should be filled with goodness and love. Personally, my life has been complicated enough with the death of loved ones and a fucked up past; things which came from the outside—things that weren’t my doing. As far as partnership/marriage goes, I don’t want hard. I don’t want to feel like I’m taking an AP chemistry exam every day of my life when it comes to my marriage. I want someone I like being around and who likes being around me. Simply put; a person who fits.
Last PS, swear to God.
A few months ago, this girl I’m friends with on FB wrote a post about marriage. She and her husband are young(er than me). In it, she said she didn’t resonate with people who say marriage is the hardest thing they’ve ever done. She went on to say, “I don’t think it’s supposed to be,” then mentioned life being difficult and exhausting and heartbreaking. Then she said this: “But being married to David…that’s the easiest part of this life. He’s my partner. My safe place. After a hard day, he is the easy part.” Her words exactly.
As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before a few “experts” weighed in on what they likely considered naiveté on her part. They told her to expect bad things in the future…and I suppose misery loves company, doesn’t it? In bad marriages that we can’t seem to let go of, we tell ourselves stories about how hard it’s supposed to be. And to feel less alone in our sadness, we tell everyone else the same. Then we don the appropriate attire for battle and march into war—the war of our marriage—the war that so desperately needs us to wave a white flag of surrender.
But why haven’t we? Because we’re afraid of change. Or because someone told us that this is what marriage is. But dear friend…what if it doesn’t have to be?
Leaving you with a sentiment that, to me, feels holy. These are the wise words of the girl I just mentioned. It seems she dug deep and found something real, something good, something true…maybe for us.
“Life is hard. Love should be the easy part.