A Marriage Essay
“What’s your secret to staying married?” she asked as she handed my husband Joe the receipt.
He and I exchanged tentative glances. The previous night’s argument hung over us like a cloud.
The first time I ever spoke to him, he was standing in line to return a book. The sky was a crystal blue. College students milled around us as my personal clock stood still.
Joe had a seriousness about him that drew me in—a voice that sent butterflies dancing beneath my ribcage.
Fast-forward twenty seven years since that campus afternoon. Five teenagers. One autism diagnosis.
I can’t tell his story. I can only tell mine.
I’ve experienced three divorces in my life—none of which have been my own.
Mother-father.
Mother-stepfather.
Father-stepmother.
Three iterations of family over the course of maybe a decade.
From 6-year old, 8-year old, 12-year old eyes I watched unions implode and dissolve.
I watched rooms empty, suitcases roll, the front door close a final time.
What can I say that hasn’t been said before? Thought before? Lived before?
Marriage is hard. It requires compromise, communication, and a special kind of tenacity.
When do you know if it’s time for a divorce?
Is it after a particularly loud argument?
Infidelity?
When you stop laughing together? Feeling curious about each other? When the spark wears off?
Maybe it’s when the everyday grind of life and adolescents and dinner from a crockpot wear you down.
The middle. This is where we are.
Navigating teenagers has been our hardest time yet.
Depression. Anxiety. Break-ups. Arguments over curfew. Tears over friendships. Waiting, breathless and exhausted, for headlights to sweep up the driveway. We are akin to firefighters, racing this way and that to extinguish the emotional flames.
At the same time, autism’s regression tugs us back toward the heat over and over again.
These are the things people don’t talk about—the loneliness that is parenthood.
What is our secret to marriage?
I thought back to the night before, when Joe and I stood at the kitchen counter, glaring at one another in an Autism Standoff.
An Autism Standoff is like any other disagreement, and yet it feels bigger. The stakes are higher.
This time, it was about our son Jack’s medication. We’d made some changes recently. We aren’t sure if it’s working. In Joe’s words, maybe it isn’t titrated right.
Titrated.
I could have burst into flames when he said that.
In everyday circumstances, my husband and I operate at face value. We say what we mean.
If I want to order pizza, I say I want to order pizza.
If he’s going to be ten minutes late, he warns me he’ll be ten minutes late.
It is only during our heated moments that nothing is as it seems.
Behind our pointed fingers, our accusations, our words, is something else entirely.
It is our inner child, our unresolved conflicts, our learned behavior.
I long to be unbreakable—stronger than the marriages of my youth.
I can’t tell his story. I can only tell my own.
In the middle of every argument we’ve ever had, I wish he would just fold me in his arms.
Anger and longing.
Both can be true.
Which do you choose, as the nervous system makes its steady uphill climb?
I want to be solid and unbreakable.
But what is solid can also be shattered.
Nothing is unbreakable.
Instead, we are fluid. We move. We shift. We change.
Butterflies between heartbeats.
As long as they’re still dancing, I will stay.
I root for us.
