Ship of Fools: marriage - heaven or hell

Thread: marriage - heaven or hell Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Tukai (# 12960) on :

The BBC 's "agony aunt" was reported as saying:

" A good marriage is the nearest thing on earth to being in heaven, but a bad marriage is the nearest thing on earth to being in hell."

How does this tally with the experience of shipmates, either personally or by observation of others?

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

I have what I regard as a good marriage. There have been times (me being a prat and upsetting Lady J through my own pig-headedness, Viscount J just being a selfish teenage git) that it has felt like hell but I still wouldn't swap it for anything else. Thus I deny the assumed dichotomy.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think all marriages are made up of both heaven and hell parts. That applies to good and bad marriages.

Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :

A 'good marriage' is still made up of two flawed, fallible people who will go through a mix of wonderful times and horrible times, as everyone does. Marriage won't solve many problems, though it does give you a whole heap of interesting new ones to distract you!

But for me, the relationship underpinning my life is heaven indeed. Like everyone else, we've had our share of the stuff life deals out sometimes. But I can honestly say that going through a hard time alongside my hubby is preferable to good times without him.

Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on :

After 17 years, I still feel like I am married to my best friend.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

After 30 years, I find it hard to add to what Gill H says. The trick is to stand together to face things, rather than to stand against each other.

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

From observation (which I have had the privilege and responsibility to do quite closely) as well as experience, I think marriage is widely variable. You can only guarantee that it won't be perfect. I used to think that St Paul was a bit hard on marriage as an institution but now I feel that his comments were fairly mild.

Cattyish. Married, still, after very nearly 16 years.

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

As has been said " a wife is a great help to a man in the problems he didnt have before he was married".

Posted by Martha (# 185) on :

Yes, many of the problems you had when you were single are solved, only to be replaced by a whole different set!

If you take the view that we are created for relationship, I guess a good marriage hopes to be the best a relationship can be, ie heaven, whereas the loneliness that comes from being in a relationship which should be that but isn't, could come close to hell. Especially if it isolates you from other relationships.

But from my relatively short experience of marriage, I agree with others that it's mostly mixed!

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

My marriage changed from heaven to hell almost on the turn of a sixpence . Once that had happened there was no way back, especially when it emerged that the other half had never regarded it as particularly heavenly from the outset.

Thankfully I now live happily in a committed relationship without the aid of a marriage certificate . When demons have been allowed to run amok in one marriage I believe they can quite easily come back to haunt a second.

Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :

My marriage was hell, I was lucky to get out alive

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

My lovely bride and I contrived to celebrate marriage for thirty-five years. Whatever she saw in me when she was a teenager and we got engaged, I'll never know!

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :

[Votive]

Kitten

If it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all....

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
As has been said " a wife is a great help to a man in the problems he didnt have before he was married".

which of course can work the other way around as well....

Posted by Clarence (# 9491) on :

It is such a sadness to me that others have not got the deep deep contentment and just sheer joy that I've had being married. Whilst we got off to a rocky start, marrying FD was the best thing that could ever have happened to me and I thank God every day for him. We are both seriously flawed individuals, and total opposites, but I am blessed every day. [Yipee]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

I was married in my early 20s for about a year and a half. I didn't know him or myself; he didn't know me or himself, and we had very different understandings of marriage.

Despite two lengthy relationships since, now both ended, I just don't think I'm suited to marriage. That one experience was allthe hell I'm ever going to want.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I've had one of each. Sounds 100% spot-on to me.

Posted by Winnow (# 5656) on :

48 years married in three days. Together since the day we met, 50 years and 10 ten months ago. Full of the usual ups and downs, with more ups than downs. Not all Heaven, but definitely no hint of Hell. Fun growing up together!

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

36 years yesterday - and neither of us regrets it at all.

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

I'm afraid those of us with heavenly relationships must sound very smug to the others.

My wife and I met 30 years ago (come 9th September) and still find it amazing that it all worked out so wonderfully. Just luck, she was the youngest of four daughters of a CoE vicar, wealthy-ish family, all went to private schools, her sisters respectively married to a successful artist (pictures in the Tate etc), the head of a major Oxford college and a successful Army surgeon. And she got me, sufficient to say not so much a different league to her brothers in law as not even in the game. Our meeting entirely inauspicious, our backgrounds apparently incompatible, our subsequent life extremely happy.

So if it hasn't happened to you yet, it's mostly chance (or Heaven, if you prefer) and it could happen today. My wife advises: progressively lower your standards as you get older and you'll find it's amazing what you can put up with.

Posted by DonLogan2 (# 15608) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
.... Thus I deny the assumed dichotomy.

I`m with LJ on this one. My marriage could not be heaven(ly) nor could it be hell(ish), but sits among the myriad of different crests and troughs that life follows and one day will be no more.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
After 17 years, I still feel like I am married to my best friend.

After 35 years, I am still married to my best friend: Z has put up with me through thick and thin and she has put up with me through sickness and in health. I dearly pray she out lives me - she is a wee bit younger and I'd be a sad old git without her!

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

D. and I celebrated our silver wedding on 2nd July this year and, like many of you, I'm delighted to say that I've spent the best quarter-century of my life married to my best friend.

[Axe murder]

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