Let's Talk Marriage

The Professor and I recently celebrated 8 years of wedded bliss. I think you'll agree that we look particularly blissful here.

In those eight years, I don't think we have one single photo of us together that I like. (but that's beside the point)

My sister picked up a wedding photo I keep in the kitchen just last night and said how young we looked. We were. My 20th birthday was just two weeks before the wedding. Tom was a ripened 25. How stupid we were, how flustered with love, how hopeful. I had seen divorce in my extended family, I had seen the devastation it caused. I was young, but I think I knew enough about marriage to feel a fierce determination. That determination has only increased since then.

There have been times when I wasn't happy with the Professor. During the worst of those times I wondered if perhaps I might be happier setting out on my own. But when I married Tom, I didn't just marry a person. I married marriage. I committed myself to this life, the life we have created and will create. That includes our children, but it amounts to so much more than that. I believe that two sincerely good people, whatever their background, personal tastes, or beliefs can make a marriage work if they set out to do so. I am blessed with a husband who agrees with me on this point. 

Tuesday night my dad called me to tell me that he had moved out. In his words, they have not divorced, but are headed in that direction. To myself and my siblings, this comes as a surprise. Less so in some ways to my mother. He is turning his back on us and 29 years of marriage to pursue his own happiness.  I admired my father, I trusted him, and thought he was a man of integrity, a man worthy of my esteem. As more and more details of his conduct have come to my knowledge in the past 48 hours I can do nothing but accept that he is not the man I thought he was.

The Professor has been a picture of support, and for that I am so grateful. I have not told my children. For now it is too raw, and they are too young. My mother and sisters and I have gathered together as much as possible. It is a bittersweet balm to draw closer as a family, wounded and broken though we may be. But even as we try to steady each other with unsteady hands, we are determined to make lemonade from these lemons. Your prayers and support as we work through all of this are much appreciated.