This past weekend I made a gourmet meal for my husband, children, and their grandma. I served them a honey-lemon-dressed salad with pears and crisp Romaine, a tiny glass basket filled with lemony-cheesed polenta encircled by steamed fresh baby asparagus into which I broke two quail's eggs, which I then baked into a wee little nest, and piquant pasta puttanesca served with toasted sourdough oozing garlic and butter, followed by the finale: a heart-shaped, lemon-strawberry buttercream cake made with eight eggs and a stick-and-a-half of butter. There was Chardonnay and Chianti for the grown-ups, and almond milk laced with maple syrup, chia seeds, cinnamon, and nutmeg for the boys.
My younger son got up from the table to give me "thank you hugs" no less than 10 times.
This is the way I chose to show my love to my family this Valentine's Day. And let me just say, I'm lucky as hell to do it. Once divorced from this incredible man who spent his entire Sunday unpacking our boxes, building shelves, delivering old clothes to the Good Will, doing my dishes, and wrestling with our boys, I know all too well what my alternate reality—and theirs—looks like. Suffice it to say, we wouldn't be sharing chores, a Valentine's meal, extended family, a history of other holidays, or much else.
But the kids, yes, they we would've shared...splitting them between households and forcing our little quails to adapt to a life without one secure nest; and to confront all the risks that come with that.
Since I started writing this blog, I've heard from reader upon reader about the reality of how divorce plays out. And how so many other people have had the tragic experience of divorce brought on them by a spouse, who, like me, thought they needed more...who were "unhappy in their marriage."
On Valentine's Day, perhaps more than on any other day of the year, my heart unwraps itself in sad empathy for all those ex-spouses and children who've been split apart by the divorce grenade. And also, for the spouses who decide to leave—who think they are "doing the right thing for everyone" because if "they're not happy or fulfilled, then their kids and spouse can't be either."
On Valentine's Day, divorce is more like a hanging than a new birth.
Divorce is more and more a predictable response to an overarching cultural ideal of marriage. Its ball of twine is wound from threads of stress, expectations of personal happiness, and a societal archetype of marriage that begins to rival the worst of dogmatic religions (Thou shalt be married in this particular way, and no other).
I, for one, hung myself on an abundant supply of twine. That ball came neatly delivered into my eager hands; hands that wanted to ease my malaise, my discontent, my frustration with what I thought was my marriage. A culture filled with divorce—and messages condoning it as a solution—dropped that lethal ball of twine right into my lap. Fingering it like a mala, I was sure I could eat, pray, love my way to happiness outside of my marriage.
Instead, there were gallows.
See, the problem was never my marriage—it was SO not my marriage! Yet at the time I was utterly convinced it was. And I had a whole lot of cultural backing for that belief.
But the real problem was stress. First there was the stress of my parent's divorce, back when I was a little kid. The ripples of unresolved stress from that event stayed with me throughout my life, changing the very neural circuitry of my brain such that doubt, anxiety, and volatility (rather than peace, confidence, and equanimity) were my autopilots. No matter who I married, I would've worried that I'd wed the wrong guy.
And then there was the stress of marriage as it stands. We've created this ideal, rarified vision of what successful marriage ought to be, and it's crushingly unrealistic. It's not Valentine's anymore for us struggling married people; it's Valen"twines." We're supposed to share our entire life with the one person on earth who is our best friend, ultimate rock-star lover, provider, domestic engineer, stunning communicator, parent to our children, spiritual confidante and seeker, and, who is, especially, our one-and-only, deeply emotionally-connected, passionate, heart-stopping soul-mate. Life is too short for anything else, no?
Actually, life is too short to believe such garbage.
Are we hoping to be married to superheroes? Because that list above does not describe the average human being. Do we get so hung up with this ideal of marriage that we are strangling ourselves and our marriages with it?
Our marriage broke, and I fell from the gallows because my husband and I came to believe that our marriage didn't add up to wedded bliss. Well, guess what? It didn't! Our marriage didn't add up to that unrealistic load of lies about Cinderella-happily-ever-after-marriages. Good marriages are not fairy tales; they are real, nitty-gritty, crucibles where couples work through the inevitable, sometimes intense conflicts that create health, meaning, and fulfillment. If partners don't see that marriage takes this kind of commitment, hard work, honesty, and focus, divorce may well be in the future. Not because the marriage is any less "good" than someone else's but because a partner loses hope, or gives up.
Like we did.
Finally, there's social and cultural stress—you know the kind....the stress of living these intense, fast-paced-but-sit-at-your-desk-all-day lives that are totally out-of-alignment with who we are as human beings? Blame your displeasure in life on trouble in your marriage, like we did, and you may soon learn that these problems were not about your marriage, but about something much, much different than your bond with your mate. And the loss of that irreplaceable bond may well hurt your—not to mention your children's—ability to confront other, much bigger stressors.
Human beings are arguably the most social species on this planet. To isolate us in a twosome or nuclear family is inhuman. Every successful, happy long-term marriage is at total odds with this, of course. These couples are almost always at the center of a devoted, rich, secure network of friends and family that brings each spouse (and, importantly, their children) a level of trustworthy human connection orders of magnitude beyond what they get alone together. These marriages succeed, in large part, because of an interlocking, reliable social web. Rich, secure connection with others ameliorates stress and creates a network of social security that is immensely beneficial for everyone involved, marriages—and especially children—included.
Marriages are at risk when couples come to believe they should be able to do it alone—and we live in a society that condones and encourages marital (and nuclear family) isolation in the extreme. Even many of the tools and "support" out there for couples rarely integrate the powerful human need for building stronger community, but rather focus on the couple itself as the main unit of healing. To lay that level of accountability on a marriage will, mark my words, break it.
This Valentine's Day I'm laying my unwrapped heart at the doorstep of all those millions of broken homes. Inside is tenderness for all the heartbreak, the fallout, the trauma of divorce as it too often plays out. Tenderness for how hard it is to stay married when Valentwine threads its way around so many of us, leaving us gasping for air.
And I'm building a secure baby quail nest—with my husband and the fierce community of friends we've forged—for all our children.
Weaving that nest (and ditching that damn stifling twine) has been the best thing we've ever done.