#ThisIsMarriage

An institution that must be endured and survived to be understood

Marriage. It’s that peculiar institution where two people who really like each other are forced to share a bathroom for 50 years. There is only one thermostat on the wall. More, smaller human beings pop out sometimes. As you can imagine, there are going to be design flaws with this plan.

Maintaining a good marriage is one of the most difficult challenges an adult will face in his or her lifetime. It’s an ongoing ordeal that requires constant compromise, teamwork and maintenance, and even the most sweet-hearted and wonderful of spouses can start to wear on your nerves after a couple of decades, especially if you like to chew their food loudly or clip your toenails.

While some people define marriage as an institution. I say that marriage can not be defined—it must be experienced, endured, and survived to be completely understood. From time to time, for the benefit of those who have never experienced the wonder, shock and awe of marriage, or for those who are afflicted by marriage to take comfort and solace in knowing they aren’t alone, I take to social media to share my current marital struggles so others can relate.

Through the hashtag #ThisIsMarriage, I began posting little conversations, situations and snippets of life to illustrate the sometimes illogical, often perplexing, and all-too-often humorous side of marriage. Here are a few:

#ThisIsMarriage

Sometimes marriage just doesn’t make any sense, and it seems like you can never win.

Wife: Fries fatback, while the pork chops and potatoes cook.

Me: Eats fried fatback, chops and potatoes.

Also me (with emotional tears over the Southern soul food): “Baby, you are such a wonderful cook. I love you so much!”

Wife (scoldingly): “Why are you being eating fatback and pork chops? Aren't you supposed to be on a diet? You just refuse to lose weight, don’t you!”

#ThisIsMarriage

Sometimes marriage is all about control.

Me: "Can I get some ketchup please?

Hardee's drive-thru window lady: "How much?"

"About a handful."

Wife: "He doesn't need that many. Just give him two packets."

Me: "What the hell? It's free ketchup! Why are you being stingy with someone else's ketchup?!"

Hardee's lady: "So is that a yes or no on the ketchup?"

Wife: "Just give him one pack."

#ThisIsMarriage

For some, marriage is a constant, epic struggle: good vs. evil, right or wrong, AC or heat, light on or light off, should we toss that away or keep it?

My wife is a tosser and I am a keeper. I will not waste anything, including that last cup of delicious, speckled butter bean "pot likker" from last night's supper. That evil woman wanted to throw it out, so I had to smuggle it out of the house to my office in a Tupperware container with her name on it. Can you picture it, shining in all its greasy glory? Yeah, I drank that pot likker with my breakfast. Right out the bowl. Didn't even use a spoon. I am not ashamed. Please don't tell her.

Sometimes the tosser will even toss my clothes away:

Dear Hampton County Solid Waste & Recycling Department:

There has been a grave mistake. My wife accidentally discarded my favorite pair of khaki shorts at the Speed Limit Road recycling center, and I really want them back. They were almost broken in and are perfect for summer wear.

If found, please return them, as they have great sentimental value. I have caught dozens of decent fish and hundreds of premature, infant fish in these shorts. They have survived numerous family vacations, a score of home improvement projects, playing football with two rough kids, a floggin' rooster, mud wrestling with pet pigs, a couple of family reunions, that time my wife tricked me into giving the cat a bath, and Cousin Possum's wedding. As you can see, they are priceless.

Thanks for your attention in this matter.

#ThisIsMarriage

For some, marriage is a waiting game: sitting around for hours or even days for the right moment to get in a jab or insult.

Scene: It's a summer day at a rural South Carolina home. A package arrives in the mail. It's a sexy new pair of swimming thongs that the wife ordered for me as a joke.

Husband: (walking around the home, acting weird, modeling the new thong bikini. Small children flee the room.) "Honey, don't I look like a stud muffin?"

Wife: (loses her appetite and stops eating) "You look like one of those muffins that makes people go poop."

#ThisIsMarriage

For some, marriage is about carefully constructing lies to serve a higher truth.

Our washing machine was acting up, but not broken. For months, I told the Mrs. it couldn’t be fixed and to live it with it

Frustrated, she called the appliance store, got a price on a new, fancy model, gave me firm instructions to buy it, pick it up, and install.

When she left, I grabbed a pair of channel-lock pliers and a flat-head screwdriver, and fixed the old one in less than 15 minutes.

Later, I stopped by the appliance store, just to see how much money I had saved. They told me that my wife had never called.

#ThisIsMarriage

Most marital lies are not about adultery, but about money.

I recently discovered that my wife lies to me quite regularly. When I ask how much I have in the bank, because she does all the mobile banking on her phone, she always gives me a low number, no matter what my balance is. Therefore, when I go out into the world, I think I'm broke and spend very little money. Then, whatever money I have left over at the end of the week, she transfers to savings—but doesn’t tell me about that, either.

On the other hand, I always pay cash at the liquor store instead of using my debit card—that way she can't track how much I actually spend on 18-year-old Scotch.

I guess we are made for each other.

Spouses. They steal your covers and snore and take your food and throw away your stuff and boss you around and tell you how to spend your own paycheck—excuse me, “our money”—and generally do everything they can to deprive you of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And yet we still love them, because they are ours, because we know that we sometimes show them our worst side as well, and yet they put up with us and still claim to love us. They are still here, and they still have our backs. It’s us against the universe, and I like knowing I’ve got that tough, money-smart, good-looking, good-cooking woman on my side in this trial we call life.

But it would be nice to have more than two packets of ketchup every now and then.