Guest Blog: Whats The Deal With Marriage, Am I Right Everyone?

 One thing that defines a person is the company they keep.  Its part of the reason economic status often perpetuates itself, part of the reason the Wu Tang Clan is so badass, and the entire reason all clowns are serial killers.  Today I have my good friend David Zafra (who has a pretty dope blog of his own where he discusses film through the lens of philosophy) talk about marriage; specifically, what is wrong with it.  Considering I was the officiant for his wedding, I take partial blame for whatever goes wrong here.

DISCLAIMER:  The totally baller views contained within this article do not necessarily reflect my own.

I read a couple of marriage articles by John Cheese very recently that got me thinking about a couple of things. Thinking about stuff is my strong suit and that's why David picked me from the mass of writing warriors to uphold the glory of his blog. Even though most of this is references to cracked articles. Anyways, here's some of the things I've noticed recently about marriage, but mostly weddings. I'm also a guy, so I may be a little biased... but seriously...

Women ruin marriage

Damn TV sitcoms and movies for creating the image of how wedding planning is "supposed" to be! Everything  from the tiny details (color of napkins) to the actual celebration. You cause your self so much unnecessary heartache, you think you just started taking Tae Kwon Do classes. 

One day this will work on a criminal!

Everyone tells you that your wedding day is a day you're never going to forget, and girls use that motivation to drive the event like a Brock Lesnar fight. Everyone says its going to be awesome, so it must be worth spending all this money promoting him and putting him on the Undisputed cover... because he's the best. But everyone loses track of what marriage was supposed to be all about. Love, right? Well, that's what so many naive young men think, right till the point that their significant others are metaphorically putting a gun to their heads, so we agree to dropping thousands on a location.

I was lucky to have a pretty cheap wedding in comparison to so many people. However, at one point a girl is so in love with her guy that she is willing to marry him in a potato sack dress in a corn field. Men hear this and jump all over it.... but then the truth comes out. Entire shows are dedicated to this idea and guys see it and get scared. I can't blame women completely for that, because it's the way things are spread in our society. I already mentioned this idea about the "perfect day that nobody will ever forget", but perfection is the bane of plans. When you are reflecting on life you won't be thinking about weddings. Like 127 Hours, you'll be thinking about the simple things... and probably the greatest time you got laid.

Parents Ruin Marriage

Your significant other's parents used to be people that you would only have deal with at dinner on the holidays. But when the relationship gets serious you suddenly have to live up to the standards they created. Maybe you don't have enough money, or seem responsible enough, or you're ethnic and your parent-in-law are white.

"I should really hide the silverware"

None of that usually matters until things get serious. Then the wedding planning starts, and you hear everyone say "this is THEIR day", even though you will trying to please everyone all the time. And this can be worse, depending on how close your spouse is to their families. With close families you have even more evasiveness's, so you'll be lucky if your fiance sides with you on the issues.

In the case of my wedding our families didn't like each other, and that stated a whole new set of problems.

But even if your families get along great, the parents love you, and you love them, you still cant avoid the peers.

Peers Ruin Marriage

The same bullshit I'm complaining about you probably heard a million times from friends, or co-workers, or people who watch a lot of sitcoms.  Its hard to avoid it, especially as a guy, you get the constant  cliche's about never having sex again, life is over, shes gonna be your boss, etc. I used to get scared because they said I'd never win an argument again. To me, that was as scary as a Christian watching Y Tu Mama Tambien.

I'm so miserable!

For guys that actually WANT to be married, several things probably happened in the process to make living less miserable. For some guys (me), it's not like you were having some crazy awesome life beforehand that you were throwing away. For other guys (romantics), this is something that you really want. I know a couple of guys who can't wait to start having kids and settling down. There's a lot of good things about being married, but it goes beyond that.

Just look at this quote quote from Newsweek

  "75... The Percent of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe that marriage is a necessary institution they'll engage in, versus 63 percent of women".

And...

"71= Percentage of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe in soul mates, versus 68 percent of women".

It's a weird trend in our society when the most outspoken group is also the one that perpetuates the trend. It's like Republicans who get caught doing gay things in bathroom stalls. However, we're talking about a much deeper problem here because women, parents and peers are all basing these ideas on what marriage is "supposed to be". So the biggest ruiner of marriage is....

Our ideals of marriage

I get a lot of heat for not being the typical "married guy". I don't wear a ring, I don't believe in a lot of the rules of the ritual, and I don't speak about my marriage with certainty.  That is, if someone says something along the lines of "how do you feel about knowing that you will be stuck with the same woman forever", I tell them that shit could happen to prevent that.  I don't think anything bad will happen at the moment, but this is America after all. I'll get into that some more later, but let me finish this concept of uncertainty.  To an existentialist, the lack of certainty doesn't mean anything.

Marriage is really like an extensive lease on an apartment. Sure you can get out of it at any time, but it's going to be much more expensive, and your landlord sort of knows that, so you both try to play nice to avoid a messy breakup. In this metaphor the lease is the marriage certificate, but all contracts can be broken. You are really signing an agreement to deal with this persons bullshit, but they're like family now so you have to deal with it regardless (South Park talked about this a little bit in an episode where Stan's parents were getting divorced).  

This may not be the romantic idea that you are signing up for, but the standard idea of love is doing a poor job when you stand it next to arranged marriage. These people live much happier than the free will married people of America. Anybody who is madly in love right now will say that they will stick around through thick and thin. Many of those people won't make it though. There's an article on BBC that talks about how middle class Indians that have started to give up on arranged marriages and increased the divorce rates 100%. I'm not saying that we need to switch to arranged marriage, only that the ideals that we created aren't the best, and a lot of that comes from the ideas given to us by TV and movies.

Boy do I hate sitcom wives like Elliot Reed and Monica Bing for teaching everyone how marriages are "supposed to be". I know guys can suck,  but women aren't prefect either. Far from it, they are pretty horrible. So why sitcoms choose to portray this image of a "crazy wife that guys have to accept despite the craziness" is far from my understanding. It basically means you don't have to change at all; Even if you're crazy, immoral and probably have a severe case of OCD.

Don't let the looks fool you, she's a total bitch.

But this idea of crazy woman that you are supposed to love anyways isn't really the most healthy way of going about a relationship. Nor is the idea of your wife being in charge, instead of being a partner. Sexless marriage is not usually a sign of a good relationship either. Yet these are the idea that we perpetuate in our society. It's almost as if these shows and movies were unrealistic.