From Singular to Plural
_Casual From Singular to Plural Marriage is the final event of innumerable movies and novels. The couple is pronounced man and wife, they kiss, and the closing credits roll, or the book runs out...
...But suddenly I am hearing tales I never paid attention to before— stories about roofs that need replacing, or water damage following a flood, or a contractor who does a really lousy job...
...Everything is going great, she says...
...Domestic matters work themselves out over time, and in any case, nothing is set in stone...
...Is this "my" chair, or is it my wife's (amazing to write those two words...
...Do I get to pick the show, or should we consult...
...There are no set formulas...
...Imperma-nence isn't quite the right word, though—"instability" might be better...
...My wife needs no such reassurance...
...Now my wife and I are saving to buy a house, and I am looking forward to that—what could be more permanent than a house, especially for someone who has lived his entire life in apartments...
...I have developed so many theories and ideas about the varying natures of single men and single women that I could teach a Learning Annex course...
...Is it okay, when you are driving in the car with your spouse, to fall silent for five minutes at a time, or is that an indication that you are going to turn into one of those couples you see, married 30 years, who sit facing each other in restaurants and do not speak during an entire meal...
...I could look at an unmarried couple in a bar and almost instantly know how long they had been going out, which one wanted to get married and which one didn't, and whether it would last...
...Marriage is, of course, supposed to be stabilizing, but it is constantly subjected to experiences any single person would find horribly disruptive to his equilibrium...
...The couple is pronounced man and wife, they kiss, and the closing credits roll, or the book runs out of words...
...Married a month myself, I have become an eager pupil...
...I was an expert on being single by dint of the fact that I was single for 36 years...
...Can I just turn on the TV while she is reading the paper, or would that be an intrusion...
...But it is also the beginning of something, and to find out what that something is like, there are few novels and movies...
...So is the birth of children, who introduce sleeplessness, demands, needs, and a whole new range of emotions into the hearts of their parents...
...things change, you adapt...
...Which household errands are run separately, which ones together...
...Or did you feel the urge to stay home and enjoy the nest...
...in her calm, there is the permanence I seek...
...If there is only one car, who drives it...
...As an expert on the single life, I believed the old cliche that men feared commitment because of its permanence—that men basically took the message of cinematic romance far too literally and figured marriage was synonymous with the words "The End...
...I want to learn how married couples do things...
...Actually, though, there is nothing that feels quite as static and permanent as the life of a single man because no matter the adventure, you always end up back in the same place: alone on a weekend morning with nothing to do all day...
...Marriage is thus treated as a conclusion, an ending, an act of completion...
...Don't rush things, they say...
...we get along so well that we will be able to work out whatever differences we have without too much trouble...
...Who keeps track of the schedule...
...John Podhoretz...
...So I guess the questions I am asking are all a way of seeking reassurance that marriage has rules and regulations that will come to be as clear to me in their way as the ones that governed my life when I was single...
...My friends are all amused by my inquiries...
...Even something as solid and steady as a house might be subject to the instabilities caused by nature itself...
...I am on unfamiliar territory even in my own living room, where I find myself wandering around unsure where I should sit...
...They are right, too, and yet I keep asking the questions: When you were first married, did you want to go out more and party until the kids arrived and you could party no longer...
...And on and on...
...But I am bereft of theories when it comes to marriage...
...Maybe the cliche has it exactly backwards...
...I love her all the more when I hear her speak such words...
...That is destabilizing...
...Who handles the money...
...Put two people in a room, and suddenly a difficulty that besets one of them has a direct effect on both...
...Maybe by getting married, you slowly learn to accept a certain measure of impermanence in every other facet of existence but your romantic life...
...I have had to turn instead to my long-married friends for guidance...
...And to be sure, it is...
Vol. 2 • July 1997 • No. 42
