People
The Truth About Mating For Life
MARISSA STAPLEY
Thirteen years ago, when I met the man I would end up marrying, I knew right away – and I panicked.
He is clearly a solid, upstanding man who wants to get married, have babies, move into the proverbial house with the picket fence. I love him, but I don’t know how to do this, I thought.
Much later, I would read and identify with an article in ‘Toronto Life’ by Leah McLaren, about the dissolution of her first marriage, and why divorce runs in families.
“The concept of marriage, for the children of divorce, is not a brick house but a mud hut constructed prior to the rainy season,” she wrote. “It’s a well-intentioned experiment, a romantic idea that occasionally survives but more often gets washed away in the floods. For evidence of its tenuousness all we need to do is look back at our multiple bedrooms, our double-duty Christmases, our loaded-down key chains, our separate family albums.”
This was exactly how I felt.
My future husband came from a nuclear family in which everyone stayed together (and not out of a sense of duty; they seemed quite happy).
Meanwhile, not only were my parents divorced, but my grandparents and all but one of my aunts and uncles were divorced, too – some of them more than once.
Still, my future husband answered, when I asked him, “But how are we going to make this last forever?” with “Because we will simply love each other.” And I thought, “Okay, I’ll follow his lead. Maybe love will be enough for us.”
Anyone who has been married more than a few years knows that in most marriages, there are ups and downs. And if you’re thinking of your marriage as a mud hut – as I was, without even quite knowing it – the downs can be very scary.
I dealt with it the only way I knew how: I started writing stories. “Maybe humans just aren’t meant to stay together,” I thought. And I created Ilsa, the character in ‘Mating for Life’ who struggles most with the concept of monogamy, and who nearly destroys herself by wandering.
“But then again, maybe we need our relationships more than anything – and then, when they fall apart, the risk is that it can completely destroy us. Is this risk worth it?” I thought later, as I created Fiona, a staunch monogamist who should have a perfect life, but doesn’t.
“Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a perfect someone out there for everyone, and we have to make sure not to miss our chance.” This was later still, as I wrote about Liane, who falls in love at first sight, and who takes a lot of risks to make it work.
Through the research I did for the epigraphs at the start of each chapter, which briefly detail the mating habits of certain animals, I learned that monogamy does not, in fact, come easy for anyone. (Not penguins, despite the widely held belief that they’re rock-steady partners. Not even swans, I’m sorry to say.)
I also watched a Ted Talk by Esther Perel, who wrote the unorthodox intimacy manual ‘Mating in Captivity‘, about the secret to desire in a long term relationship. The reason mating for life is such a huge challenge today, she said, is because we’re living longer than ever (isn’t that what Gwyneth said when she consciously uncoupled from Chris Martin?) and expecting much more from our partners than ever before.
We want our spouse to be our lover (and a highly imaginative one, no less), our best friend, our cheerleader, our business partner, the perfect parent to our children, the perfect host to our family and friends, the person who knows what we want before we do. It’s no wonder the general consensus these days is that marriage is a lot of hard work.
I thought, as I wrote ‘Mating for Life‘, that in the end I would be able to justify why it’s okay to walk away from a marriage when the going gets tough. But what started out as anything but a story about the redemptive power of love, in all its forms, turned out to be exactly that.
I wrote about what it takes to love another person – not just a spouse, but a child, or a parent, or a sibling, or a friend – forever, and I realized in the process that this kind of love is a choice. That it takes work, and acceptance, and humility. And, as only a labour of love can, this book, and the writing of it, changed my life.
Marissa Stapley is the author of “Mating for Life“, which was recently published by Simon & Schuster Canada. She lives and works in Toronto.
[Courtesy: National Post]
July 29, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), July 29, 2014, 9:40 AM.
Whilst ordinary human couples find it difficult in marriage and relationships because they haven't got a clue about how to deal with boredom in a relationship or with falling out of love with someone they loved! Guru Nanak tells us that the deep crimson love for the Creator is so colour-fast that this deep red love doesn't ever fade or wear out! A couple needs to understand that youth, beauty and success withers away! So, without the Naam, there can never be any peaceful or truly successful relationship because then it is reduced to only a passing fad!
2: Devinder Pal Singh (Delhi, India), July 30, 2014, 3:34 AM.
In the Sikh community, the word divorce was not popular nor accepted, however for quite some time now, hearing this is common. There are various factors which have made this happen: youth belief, lack of commitment, egos, professional pursuits, etc. None want to overcome compulsions, many a times trivialities overtake emotion and seize sanity to dwell in the mind, the results are manifold for the couple, for the family around and for the offsprings from such marriages. This may be a way of life in the West, but what has been the penalty rising out of broken homes is studied but conveniently discarded? Only if we learn to tolerate shortcomings and develop a sense of accepting the imperfect when seeking the perfect will there be respite. Divorce is certainly not easy to accept and overcoming the aftermath of divorce does require immense effort, will and regret. Our pursuits need to be harnessed in a manner which allows us to accommodate and provide space to all around us. Doing this is very easy if we comprehend the Sikh teaching of practicing the Work Ethic, doing Sewa and Sharing and Praying. Bonds take time to establish and cannot be easily discarded.