The Truth About Marriage "Submission"
If Celebrities Can't Stay Married, What About the Rest of Us?
“We both know we couldn’t do what we do without each other. … Honestly, I would do anything for that man, because I know it’s not taken for granted.” — Jennifer Garner on her then-husband Ben Affleck, People, 2011
“There are just so many rewards that come with it. You have to work at it. But, actually, it’s fun to get to this point. Because you learn so much about somebody. It’s like these wars that go on and then you kind of get through it to the other side, and it’s like, wow. And obviously, you get stronger. And then having kids takes the whole relationship to another place. It is the ultimate collaboration. Both of us have such strong opinions about how it should be, and it’s really fun to do it together.”— Gwen Stefani on her marriage, Vogue, 2012
“This is going to be my last marriage, and hopefully hers too. I didn’t want to propose until I knew it was time. I want it to last.” … and … “But divorce, that’s outlandish to us.” — Blake Shelton to Us Weekly, 2011, and Marie Claire, 2014
“He pulls me out of my darkness. … Literally, everything is the best about being married.” —Miranda Lambert, Marie Claire, 2014
In case you weren’t picking up on my theme here, those are all quotes from a slew of recently divorced celebrities (as in celebrities who literally announced their divorces one after another over a week, as if they had carefully coordinated to depress us all).
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And I know, I know, celebrities may not be the #1 source of marriage role models we can all aspire to look towards, but there was something about all of these couples that just seemed refreshingly real to me.
Take Jen and Ben, for instance. I mean, he went from bootylicious J-Lo to the wholesome, no makeup, flaunts her non-pregnant baby belly with pride, mom-next-door girl and I loved that.
Or Gwen, who managed to look cool doing everything, even breastfeeding by a mountain and still managing a 14-year marriage. She even admitted marriage took hard work and commitment and wasn’t all sunshine and roses. She was honest about it, no doubt (haha).
And then there was Miranda and Blake, whose relationship may have been a little iffy from the start, considering Blake was oogling her while still married, but still. They totally seemed like the down-home country couple happy with their 10,000 animals.
As a general rule, I really don’t care that much about celebrity romances, married or not. Celebrities break up more frequently than my daughters fight about whose turn it is to sit on the beloved flowered booster seat (#stupidthingskidsfightabout).
But when the hits just seemed to keep coming on the celebrity divorce front, I have to admit that I started to feel a little discouraged. Because if celebrities — with endless access to solutions to the problems that most “normal” couples fight about, like money, work, and child care — can’t even make it, what hope does that leave for the rest of us mere mortals?
It makes me wonder if anyone is ever truly honest about their marriages.
I think of all the couples I know, the same ones that post adoring, lovey-dovey pictures on Facebook or Instagram that at face value, almost make me jealous, until I remember that the behind-the-scenes are usually never that pretty.
I’ve experienced the polishing up, the primping and the smoothing of the edges of the hardships of marriage, even as I’ve spilled my guts about my own. It’s almost like all of us, celebrity or not, have two different truths about marriage: the one that we present to the world, whether it be through that innocent picture on Instagram to an article about your husband’s underwear, and the one we actually live.
“You begin performing and believing your own performance instead of focusing on what is actually taking place in the relationship,” writer and recently-divorced Monica Bielanko wrote on her blog in describing the phenomenon of looking at a relationship, even your own, from the outside in.
“You blur where real you ends and Internet you begins. You become a character and you begin to believe your own bullshit. It happened to me and I am still watching it happen to others. You believe your Instagram photos. You believe Internet you.”
To some extent, we all do this and obviously celebrities do this on an even more grand scale.
But it’s also ultimately damaging, not only to the couples like Gwen and Ben and whomever else will drop a divorce bomb this week, to pretend everything is hunky-dory, but also to all of us, who may be judging our own relationships on the appearance of others.
Which leaves me to two major conclusions about marital love:
- The only way to make it through marriage is to ignore everyone else
- Everyone is full of crap
Oh, and also, full-time nannies, housekeepers, and other household staff are not always the dream come true that they might sound like. Who would’ve thunk?