Posted on 08/30/2005 10:14:07 PM PDT by tbird5
I've seen two movies lately, one very funny ( Wedding Crashers ) and one infuriatingly stupid ( Must Love Dogs ), but both baffling in their lockstep to happily-ever-afterland. Why does romantic love, the kind that doesn't occur in life except fleetingly and disappointingly, still play to the crowds? I give the impecunious boat-builder and the petit bourgeois schoolteacher five years at the outside -- he's not going to keep her in end-tables. And Daddy's Little Girl will have ditched the immature arriviste long before that.
Why, in an era when men and women can barely achieve détente, in a First World where everyone suffers from attachment disorder, are we still ponying up for marriage? On the HBO series Six Feet Under a show I adore because all the characters behave abominably at all times, yet never manage to have more than a millisecond of fun men and women can't stay married or remain faithful from one week to the next. We're not quite that bad, we HBO viewers, but we're getting there.
I'm no historian, but it doesn't take a Paul Johnson (author of A History of the American People ) to tell us why it's so hard to stay married. We live too long. Marriage is a naturally polarizing process that causes one person to detest, over time, what the other person loves. Only after a couple divorces do they move back toward the center, where their interest in one another began. (I knew a man who left his wife because of the endless chintz and throw pillows. I went to visit him once in his new Bauhaus apartment, but he couldn't really talk he was too distracted by trying to choose the right tassels for his new Salamandre curtains.)
(Excerpt) Read more at hartfordadvocate.com ...
she sounds like a truly miserable person.
There will always be a new crop, that wants to tie the knot with their one true love. Having been through one divorce myself, I'm very glad I took another dive into the marriage pool. The second time around was a winner.
After 30 rollicking years with a strapping Minnesota farmer, I can tell you that this poor person with the spoofy nom de plume needs to get out more often. Go find someplace that isn't paved, kiddo. Find a place where the sun really shines and there is real grass and dirt, and get a LIFE.
What a sad commentary on life.
I've been married 22 years, and I'm pretty sure my wife and I don't hate each other any more than we did when we were newlyweds.
Marriage is pretty simple. Once you realise you are stuck and simply HAVE to make it work, the rest is all downhill.
Of course, it's easy for me to say, because my wife doesn't beat me.
very bitter and self-absorbed. Obviously she's incapable of keeping a long term relationship. Probably watches sex and the city a lot.
Not a very nice article.
Holy heck! This has got to be just about the most bitter article I have ever read on any subject. I was going to say 'you forgot the barf alert', but forget it, it would never suffice.
I feel sorry for the poor kid, and btw, GREAT POST!
Particularly funny, to me anyway, she can't spell Scalamandre......she spells it rather as if it were some sort of french lizard. Shows what she knows...
Its little wonder the author is divorced. It is quite clear that she never had a clue what a marriage was to begin with. If you don't start with a true sacramental marriage, your chances suffer. If you start with the meaningless parody she started with, you are doomed.
patent
Uh, because us crowds are romantically in love, for many years and are mature enough to overcome a few minor disappointments?
She's divorced because she probably knew what was best for her ex also.....
Amen.
"...because us crowds are romantically in love..."
I love that! Romantically, even!
What ails this dingbat?
"...this poor person with the spoofy nom de plume..."
Good catch!
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
You were right - we would agree on another topic :)
"You know, I can't believe all these stories I read in the newspapers here about people getting divorced all the time in this country. That's just incomprehensible; I mean, there must not be any morality in this country at all. Why, I've been married 57 times, and I've never been divorced..."
Good for you. From someone who has seen way too many divorces end up with unhappy later relationships, I'm happy for you. I wish more people would use an initial divorce as a learning experience and find true love.
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