35

When the thirteenth year of marriage rolled around, right about exactly on our anniversary, we were dressing to go to a Christmas party, and I sat down on the bed and said, “I don’t want to be married any longer.”

My husband sat down next to me and replied, “I don’t either.”

My brother, who has been divorced twice and married three times, says that ours was not a real divorce. His logic was that we never split up, and we remarried seven years later (See 42), so that was not a real divorce. But who’s to say what a real divorce is? He missed the point.

Our point was that the institution of marriage wasn’t meeting our needs, it was failing us both miserably. We had to rely on ourselves and each other. I had written my husband a note a week before this particular evening, saying, “Either we divorce and stay together, or we stay married and move apart.” After a week of pondering, it was clear that I wanted to stay together. I had no idea that my husband would feel the same way, and it was a great relief when he agreed with my decision.

For myself, I was tired of feeling like chattel. Of feeling like the brood mare. Of feeling society’s expectations that I would wash out poopy diapers and serve a magnificent Thanksgiving Dinner. Of feeling that I had failed the Women’s Movement by getting married in the first place, and failed again by not carving out halvsies: income, diaper changes, tire changes, free time, cooking dinner, personal friendships, careers. I was tired of feeling that marriage had caught me into the vortex of failure and I couldn’t swim out of it.

I can’t speak for my husband, but I will venture a guess. I think he was tired of my misery. He never gave up on me, but he could see that this — whatever it was — was not working.

So we divorced. Spent a pleasant half-hour with our attorney. Told the kids about it so that they would know it as a positive, not a negative. And decided not to tell our relatives because they would insist on responding as though it was a disaster. That pushed the responsibility onto our twelve-year-old daughter, who explained it to her grandmother. Unintended consequences.

Seven years later, before taking the kids on a long voyage, my husband proposed again, saying, “I’m worried that if anything happens to me, your estate might be contested.” I said, “You’re right. Let’s get married.” It was a legal and financial arrangement that served us all. And we’ve been living happily ever after.

Have I escaped the undertow of institutional marriage? Not entirely, but I have not come close to drowning again. Is it a false marriage? No. The first one was the false marriage. Do we celebrate our 46th anniversary, or our 39th? We celebrate 46 years of being together.

We didn’t go to the party that evening; we were no-shows. We were never invited to that Christmas party again. But guess who’s still married and who’s not.