The Knot List - Joanne Fedler

Copyright © Joanne Fedler
Second Edition
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Cover design by Jesse Zlotnick
Cover text by Dov Fedler
Introduction
'So when are you two getting married?'
If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked this question by well-intentioned
strangers, malevolent relatives or people who misapprehend my most-pondered choices
for cocktail gossip, I would be writing this from my yacht in the Bahamas as a swarthy
Mediterranean waiter in a wisp of a sarong serves me a Bloody Mary. For more years than
was considered decent – eight to be exact – my Special Partner in Life and Love (SPILL) and
I were not married. And there really was nothing wrong with us. We lived together. We loved
one another. We had even been bold enough to spawn two children out of wedlock, much to the
strain on my late grandmother's nerves, which she took to remedying with a triple Scotch on
the rocks. And though I have never been skinny enough to wear a body glove of a white satin
gown, which blabs to all the world that I don't do g-strings, I had only one issue with being
unmarried – I had no idea what to call him.
My boyfriend? (We were in our late thirties for god's sake). My partner? (Too businesslike) My lover? (He didn't need any more encouragement) My de facto? (A little archaic, all
that Latin). So I just referred to him as 'him'. You know, 'the guy I live with'. Don't think that
stopped people from referring to me as Mrs Z – a fact which caused me to become absurdly
irate. As if. I cannot abide the gendered assumption. Not to mention the indignity in losing half
my name.
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People would ask me, 'Why aren't you married?' as if I had somehow misunderstood
that if I wanted to live happily ever after, I ought to be. Despite rocketing divorce rates to
the contrary, we are taught that it is better to be married than to be single. That it is better to
be married than divorced. That it is even better to be unhappily married than to live happily
together with someone you love.
I just didn't want to get married.
If you can get over the historical baggage of marriage as a proprietary arrangement
between men where one hands over his (presumed virginal) daughter to another, you
immediately get ensnared in the over-commercialised birds' nest of bridal retail; and I'm not a
frilly frock sort of gal to begin with. (I honestly don't give a rat's whisker if the serviettes match
the flowers). And my own folks aside, frankly, I hadn't seen all that many happy marriages. Most
marriages, a few years in, appear to be a particularly sadistic arrangement where two people
stay together for every conceivable reason other than that they actually want to. Marriage all
too often resembles a form of modernized, legalised domestic slavery. If I could have it my
way, I'd also want someone to do my laundry, cook my dinner, clean my house and have sex
with me whenever I felt like it. Everyone needs a wife. But it's only those who pull the short
straw who actually end up being the wife.
Then of course marriage is still, in some countries, a closed guild with entry reserved
for heterosexuals only. Presuming you care about what your choices say about your values,
isn't it morally dodgy to accept membership of a club which excludes people based on their
sexuality? What sort of message does that send to my all my gay and lesbian friends?
But if I'm honest, politics and solidarity were only fractionally implicated in my reluctance
to trudge up the aisle. My real reason had more to do with the way my throat closed when I
thought about the weightiness of the commitment. All that loving and holding. In sickness and
in health? 'til death do us part? I couldn't envisage myself – with a straight face, and without
crossing my fingers behind my back – promising someone (anyone – not even Ralph Fiennes
for that matter) that I would love him forever. I mean, we're talking about forever. It seemed so
... so ... unreasonable, so relentless. It would be truculent of me to ignore the fact that, over the
years, I've changed my mind about things as fickle as hair-styles and fashion, not to mention
taste in men. If I'd married that Marxist revolutionary ten years ago, or the lute-playing Peter
Pan architect fourteen years ago, I'd have an impressive little treasure chest of wedding rings
in my top drawer, not to mention maintenance claims up to my eyeballs.
I just want to be sure that I can keep my promises.
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Then one day, I changed my mind. Just like that. I looked at this good patient man who
had stood by my side for eight long hard years, who had fathered my two, variously, precious
and precocious children, who had financially and emotionally supported me in migraine and in
childbirth, and I found myself saying, 'I think I love you enough to marry you'. He spilled his
beer down the front of his shirt. But – and he'll deny this of course – he got tears in his eyes.
So we tied the knot, barefoot under a tree in a park, surrounded by a handful of friends.
Though keeping my maiden name (as if I ever was a maid), hasn't deterred people from
referring to me as Mrs Z, and I don't wear a wedding ring, because it is a horrible nuisance
when I am typing and we couldn't afford the white gold band that goes with all my silver
jewelry, I am happy to be married. Really. Despite all my previous misgivings.
But here's what I know for sure: I could not have done it unless and until I had done all the
things I needed to do before getting married. At least I hope I have.
Depending on your take on long-term relationships, marriage is either a lottery or a
work in progress. If like me, you prefer to hedge your bets, this is my list of 25 essential things
to tick off before leaping off the ledge of singledom into the freefall of nuptial longevity.
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1
Travel Alone
Straight after the HSC exam, a couple of my female classmates found the first bloke they
could and got married. Fifteen years later, I met up with one of them. She was a middle-aged
woman (hair-do, sensible shoes and all) with teenage children. While I raced after my son in
his bulging nappy and variously yanked him out of a fountain and retrieved his bottle from
a German shepherd's ear, she smiled a 'been-there-done-that' grin and clucked, 'Children do
grow up, you know'.
As I took in her Gucci handbag and sensible shoes, listened to her worn-out conversation
about how to teach safe sex to adolescents while I was worrying about potty training, I thought
with pity, 'Yes, but have you ever had your passport stolen in Rome and had to flash your
cleavage to an Italian official to get a new one?'
She had stepped into adulthood before she had stepped into life or off a plane. The way
I saw it, she had traded the best years of her youth for a grown-up existence that would have
been waiting for her five or even ten years later. She was getting married while I was getting
laid. By the age of 24 she had had four kids while I had had four boyfriends in four different
countries. She'd never left the neighbourhood, while I had never left a forwarding address. I
couldn't help wondering: what was the big hurry?
Why would you want to get married if you'd never had a stranger pay for your cappuccino
in a piazza in Rome while he teaches you to sing 'Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' in
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Italian? I wanted to lug a backpack up the footpaths of Kilamanjaro before I carried a posy.
Would I have lived enough if I had never trawled marketplaces imagining I was going to be
kidnapped for my internal organs or sold on the black market as a sex slave? Or tasted things
people back home keep as pets?
I never experienced a freedom as complete, terrifying and soul-stripping as the one I
felt when I was cut loose from the moorings of my family, culture and upbringing. Suddenly
it hit me like bird poo – that other people's opinions, influences and authority over me defined
who I was and who I thought I was. Out there in the world all by myself, I discovered I was
much more than a dutiful daughter and bitchy sister. I gave myself the surprise of my life by
successfully negotiating my way from one place to the next, without speaking the language
and with no money even though the last ferry had left and the next one was only due on
Friday. I concluded that, though I am to quote my father, 'more gullible than Snow White,' I
am perfectly capable of assessing whether a stranger is going to cut me up into little pieces
and feed me to his pet Rottweiler or is genuinely offering me a bed for the night – without the
strictures of my culturally-phobic 'stranger danger' attitudes.
In new places, I stretched myself. I stopped saying things like, 'I'd never eat ... dried fish,
turtle brains or sheep's entrails. I learned that people who have little are much more ready to
share than people who have much. I changed my mind about public transport as a medium for
humans only – goats and chickens make perfectly acceptable travel companions. They travel
well, on the whole.
In moments of personal necessity, I reckon we become our best selves as we figure
things out all on our own. Unhinged from all we know, we light up new synaptic pathways as
we work out how to barter clothes for food or discover how delicious toasted termites are
when we haven't eaten for two days. (Our culinary appreciation of the insect world may have
lain dormant our whole lives.)
Everything weird and wonderful we've experienced becomes part of the bounty we offer
in a relationship. Just think about it – living with someone for 'the rest of our lives' is going
to test the limits of our boredom. But if our eyes have seen different sunsets and our hands
have known new ways of touching (This is how Native Americans show affection) and our
ears have heard songs and stories and drums from elsewhere, we'll be more interesting human
beings for it. All the things we've known and experienced, all the people we have met on our
journey, travel with us into the four corners of our marriage. At the very least they remind us
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that the world is immense and that people love and live and hope and dream and die in many
different places.
Who sits where at the wedding will not make or break the relationship, will it?
Want my advice? Put the Gucci handbags and sensible shoes on lay-by for now. Take a
walk on the wild side before you take a walk down the aisle.
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2
Travel Together
Once you've seen the world through your own eyes, why not take another trip? This time,
together.
Romance is relationship bubble wrap. Sure, it's fun to play with, but what's hiding under
all that padding? Packaging is great, especially if it comes with a spectacular set of abdominal
muscles and a dimple in the chin, but we've got to get to the guts of it especially if we're on the
commitment trail.
Think about it – everyone is generous, sane, honest, faithful and decent in the first six
months of a relationship. Most people can manage their best behaviour in the early days. First
impressions are love-bait. But we don't want to end up stuck with a barbed piece of metal
through any of our delicate bits, especially our hearts.
Spying is always an alternative. We could bribe the girlfriend's shrink or track down
exes who can dish up the real dirt. But two things: no matter how your explanation comes out
when you get bust, you're going to look like a stalker. And then there's the little issue of trust
that so many people seem hung up on. Unfortunately it's a lot like virginity – once it's gone,
it's never coming back.
There's only one way to cut through the romantic padding while still playing fair: travel
together.
All that's needed is an image of our honey-bunny-sugar-wooger stripped of the sports
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car, designer labels, peer group, monthly income, clean toilets, and running water. A single
candid hungry, exhausted, scared or lost snapshot will do. The perfect gentleman who opens
the car door for us and buys us a rose every Sunday to celebrate our weekly anniversary could
shed a couple of layers when we're down to the last swig in the water bottle and the next stream
is still hours away. Keep an eye out for so much as a hint of hesitation before he passes it. With
our raging malaria-induced fever in a place where there are no drugs or telephone lines, does
she stay to mop our brow or sneak out to the bonfire the Brazilians are having on the beach?
On horseback in the rain, with no money and unable to speak Swahili, idiosyncrasies have
no place to hide. Odd little habits, obsessions with money, food, ablutions, cleanliness, sleep
or privacy and other lesser known aspects of our personality will come right up like a bad
vindaloo.
Travel is a process of resolving one crisis after another – a missed flight, mislaid luggage,
miscommunication, money stolen or being duped by the locals. It's the perfect setup for a
failsafe personality lie detector test. Wait and watch. No matter what qualities we've herded
into the spotlight, genuine generosity, selfishness, kindness, tolerance or obsessive compulsive
behaviour cannot be faked under stress. We only have to watch a single episode of The Amazing
Race. Has a relationship ever survived that show?
I have both fallen more deeply in and unblinkingly out of love after a trip as a couple
with a backpack and not much cash. Out in the middle of nowhere, in unfamiliar places, we
are forced to cling to one another like survivors stranded on a desert island. That dependency is
either the plasma of eternal intimacy or the slow-working poison of the insight that we'd rather
end up sour and disgruntled with a house full of overfed cats than have to look at this person
over our Weetbix for the rest of our lives.
Every relationship pre-I do, can do with a shake-up to bring all those quirks to the
surface. One way or the other, life will throw us a curved ball or two. Relationships get earthbumpingly real when we're dealt unexpected hands – sick (or handicapped) children, death,
accidents; retrenchments, illness, depression or any other one of life's little bombshells.
By the time we swing that backpack off our shoulders, we will know one way or the
other.
A trip together is also the best way I know to create a joint history with the person we
love. I remember with a special fondness how one boyfriend set the hostel room in Malawi
alight when he fell asleep after lighting some romantic candles he'd adhered to the only object
we could find – a plastic tape cover. And forever etched in the memory of my heart is how
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another pulled the rental car over to the side of the road as the sun was setting along the Grand
Canyon so I could take a photograph of his hand cupping the rising moon, lest I forget that 'he
held the moon in his hand for me'.
By the time we step off that plane, there will be plenty of material for the special day.
His diarrhea in India or the look on your face when you realised that strawberry milkshake was
really snakes' blood may even seem funny when woven into the wedding speech.
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3
Live Alone
How do you like your eggs? Scrambled? Poached? Fried?
If we don't know the answer to this question, maybe we're not quite ready to get
married. While the difference between scrambled and fried may not seem important, I'm of the
opinion there's a lot the eggs can tell us. People who never face themselves alone do that
annoying merging into others manoeuvre, and become nauseating 'me toos' and 'I don't minds'.
As kids we're not given the choice – we grow up in communal families, surrounded, always
surrounded. Once we're married, everywhere we turn – from the bed, to the bathroom, to the
TV remote – our moods are open for public inspection. We only ever know what it means to
have our own space when we live alone.
Strangely, most of us don't know who the hell we are until we spend a decent amount
of time all on our lonesome, away from the 'shoulds' 'musts' and 'have tos' of overbearing
fathers who 'can't stand that bloody music' and obsessive compulsive mothers who just don't
appreciate we have better things to do with our lives than pick up dirty laundry.
Alone we get to know what we want – whether it's a Mars Bar at 2am or the exact plot
on that hill where we want to be buried. Knowing what we want determines whether and who
we marry. If we substitute scrambled or fried for Desperate Housewives or Time magazine; a
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Macdonald's burger or sushi; World Vision or a new LCD TV; Hilary or Obama; Tofu or rare
roast beef, we start to notice that every single choice we make defines us, refines us.
Alone we figure out who we are when no one is looking. A nose-picker? A pimplesqueezer? A couch potato? How many days can we go without a bath if there's no one else to
smell us? Alone we can stop pretending, and let it all hang out without being embarrassed by
the names someone would call us if they were peeping through the keyhole.
Living alone is also more fun that it sounds. Who's to say dinner can't be a box of
Dunkin Donuts eaten in bed naked? Or that 4am is a ridiculous time to cook up a Thai feast
while belting out Abba's Fernando in your undies? Be a slob. Watch too much TV. Eat junk
food. Don't wash the dishes. Let the plants die ... and no one will say a thing about it.
After a while, we could decide it's time to tidy up. And not because anyone's telling us
to. We start to assemble the kind of self- reliance only getting hit with a water or electricity bill
can induce. We figure out how fridges get filled, and that new ecosystems develop if dishes are
left unwashed for long enough. We click that housework, despite all those bloody fairy-tales
to the contrary, is not done by little elves who pitch up after we've gone to sleep. We may find
that we prefer to clean out the bath before washing or to vacuum up the cockroach carcasses
the cat's been playing with because ...we're just that sort of person.
Marriage seems to work so much better if both of us know how to change a light
bulb or boil an egg. Being equipped for independence is actually the best foundation for an
interdependence. Dependency on anyone other than ourselves is a kind of laziness that only
gets worse with time.
People who are happy in their own company make for good marriage companions. If we
constantly need other people to feel beautiful or interesting, perhaps we're neither.
If we don't like living with ourselves, why should anyone else? Alone we get to relish
the freedom that comes when it's just us, the frying pan and the egg. And that egg is looking at
us all round and shiny saying, 'Oh yeah? Whacha gonna do with me?'
Once we've worked out the egg, the rest is smooth sailing.
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4
Live Together
It is, as far as I can tell, relatively straightforward to find someone to fall madly in love with.
It is even less taxing to find someone to whom we are pants-rippingly sexually attracted. But it
is much rarer, I think, to find someone who doesn't annoy us. As far as I can tell, the only way
to resolve whether someone is irritating is to live with them, lest we find ourselves citing her
irritating cough as a reason for 'irretrievable breakdown of marriage' in front of someone in a
black robe.
Dating is no substitute for living together. Dating is the training bra model of living
together's ultra-supportive fit. When we date, we scale the tip of the iceberg of a personality.
Unless we're a sociopath, we are perfectly capable of displaying our best manners in those
early romantic days. It is too easy to hide dirty underwear, password protect racy emails to
exes and do the full make-up and brushing of teeth before he wakes up. It is entirely possible,
while dating, never to break wind or have a bad hair day.
If we want to know what someone is really like, we have to live with them to the point
of 'it's your turn to take out the garbage' and 'how many times do I have to ask you not to leave
the toilet seat up' interactions. People are peculiar in ways we cannot begin to imagine until
we've watched the drool dribble out of the corners of their snoring mouths, been slapped with
an irritable early-morning mood and had a flick through those 'magazines he keeps for the
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articles' in his bedside drawer.
When we fall in love, we quickly forget that no one (despite best efforts to conceal the
obvious) is spared the indignity of bowel movements and early-morning breath. What we don't
want on our wedding night is to catch our hubbie in our g-string or reading our diaries.
Live together first. If his penchant for dressing up in women's clothing or her shopaholic
tendencies is going to break the marriage, we might as well find out before the expensive
champagne corks start popping.
We wouldn't buy a car without test-driving it, would we?
Why should a relationship be any different?
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5
Sow Your Wild Oats
One of the most gainful perks of marriage is always having someone to make love to. Think
of all the time that saves. No more chasing. No more buying of expensive drinks. No more
wondering about whether you are going to pick up something you can't put down at the end of
the evening.
Of course, that is presuming we've done the chasing, the buying of expensive drinks, the
flirting, the hot-sex on bonnets of cars in public places.
What? You haven't? Well, don't just sit there. Sow those wild oats before it gets mouldy.
Saving yourself for marriage? Virginity does not earn interest. 'Experiment' is a word with a
repertoire limited to gadgetry and French maid outfits when you're in a long-term monogamous
relationship. When you finally get married, you realise there is so little time, and so many
people out there you could have, would have, should have shagged.
If you're saving yourself for your wedding night because you think God would prefer
that, you might want to skip this one. I can't say if it a noble course (it could be). To me, it seems
abstemious and I can only hope you're eating a lot of chocolate to compensate. But assuming
you do not have a divine calling to a state of premarital virginity, I'd really recommend some
serious sowing, a couple of prenuptial orgasms at least, so that when you get married, you
won't think you can't. I personally don't get how anyone could mistake sex for a sin – but that's
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just me. What does seem sinful is that some women, well into their marriages, believe there is
something 'wrong' with them because they've never had an orgasm.
I suspect that any man who insists the woman he marries be a virgin (in that 'hymen
intact'' kind of way), is wedded to those antiquated ideas about women's purported 'purity'.
Methinks the lad doth wish to bury his own inadequacies in his poor missus's ignorance. If
neither of us knows where the clitoris is, we are in for a bit of a miserable fifty years or so
between the sheets. That seems like a terrible waste.
With all things we end up having a reputation for, whether it is tennis, strawberry
cheesecake or making little swans out of folded paper, practice is all that stands between us
and some kind of perfection.
These days with AIDS and other STDs lurking ominously in the wings, a little precaution
is sensible. But with a bit of knowledge and a dash of latex, why abstain? Like all good girl
scouts, we can be prepared. What we lose in spontaneity, we can make up for in frequency.
There are so many good reasons to explore who we are as sexual beings (responsibly,
respectfully, not necessarily penetratively). Sex is a great way to start or end the day, to help
overcome a craving, to keep warm in winter or to take our mind off an exam. After a night in
someone's arms we know whether this particular sequence will do for the rest of our lives, or
we'd like to try something with a little twirl at the end.
Finally, if we imagine sowing our wild oats before marriage will erase our desire to have
sex with other people once we are married ... I'm afraid not. We have to cross those bridges
when we come to them. But if we've done our fair bit of sowing in our youth, the abstention
later on will feel less like deprivation.
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6
Love and Lose
Some people marry their first loves. This is intriguing, if a little parsimonious on the life
experience scale. But true love is true love, and best to grab it when you can, even if it means
never getting to French kiss a stranger in Paris in the springtime.
The rest of us have all had the crap beaten out of our hearts at one time or another. We
know only too well the sting of the rebuff, the clammy coldness of 'I just want to be friends'.
Having our hearts bulldozed is one of those Must-Have moments in life, developing us as
sentient beings, just like the butterfly needs to crowbar its way out of the cocoon with its wings,
otherwise it can never fly. Being given the flick by a lover, while humiliating, excruciating and
devastating, is not all bad. When we have managed to scrape the last shreds of our dignity off
the floor, and dust ourselves off, there are lessons to be learned. Even if it is never to say 'I love
you' first. Or not to have sex on the first date. Or to make sure we keep the jewellery next time
round. Stripped down to our most vulnerable rejected selves, we sort out some rules of thumb
for next time round: how to pace intimacy better, how idiotic it is to believe married men will
ever leave their wives, and how begging someone to stay is just not the way to get them to
stay.
Getting dumped, rejected, or abandoned is a bump along the way that we cannot – and
why would we want to? – avoid. Through them we learn to recover from disappointment.
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Or not. Either we wither into self-pity, start over-eating and become fat and bitter. Or we
bounce back. This time with knuckledusters in our hearts – just in case. An annihilation is only
successful if we never actually pick ourselves up. Like the Japanese proverb says: 'Fall down
seven times. Stand up eight times'.
Personally, I could never trust a heart that's never been broken. Love is not for sissies. I
want to be heart to heart with a heart that's been stitched back together. And besides, scars are
so sexy.
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7
Break Some Hearts
I am not a big fan of 'falling' generally, it may be my vertigo. 'Falling in love' is a phrase that
makes love sound like a pothole we stumble into when we aren't paying attention. Maybe we
have more control than just a careless 'oops' down a rut.
Sitting around waiting for the right person to come along is about as adventurous as a
Wiggles concert, not to mention a cop-out. Love need not be so passive. Does love ever really
come knocking at our door? In real life.
Okay so maybe we haven't had a date in a while, and all the good men are married or gay.
But spooning Rocky Road ice cream into our sorry-for-ourselves faces is no substitute for a
rain-dance to make it start pelting men. If we're regaling the cat with theories on why men have
the asshole gene or women are genetically predisposed to bitchiness, we are in more trouble
than we appreciate. The fact that the past few men we've dated have had a very impoverished
concept of finer female anatomy or the women we've wined and dined didn't seem impressed
with our front counter seats at KFC, ought not to break our spirits.
If we're still reeling from a recent rejection, maybe – it's just a thought – we weren't a
lot of fun to be in a relationship with. Maybe, just maybe, it had NOTHING to do with us.
Maybe the person who dumped us is the loser. I said maybe. There is only one way to take
rejection: never personally. The fact that one person thought we were boring and could lose
a little weight does not make us unlovable. Next time round, we may be more discerning in
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seeking out someone less conversational about politics and religion and who shares our view
that the Iron Man challenge is for people who don't have a life.
So why don't we start with this: the world is full of lonely people who would love
nothing more than our scintillating company if for no other reason than to get them off the
couch and away from the Rocky Road ice cream. Given the choice, we'd all prefer to find our
'soul mate' first off. But until then, what's wrong with a little pre-soul mate practice? Why can't
we go out and be the breaker of hearts?
We can pretend we are doing research for a book. We can experiment with the worst
pick-up lines. What works? What scares people? We can wear ridiculous amounts of lipgloss,
or grow a goatee. And flirt till our cheeks hurt.
Love is such a serious grown-up business, but it can also be light and easy. We can date
someone who is totally wrong for us in every way and get hot and steamy with someone who
missed his calling as a preacher or a porn star. Then we can move on. Rules for this are: Be
upfront. Don't tease. Don't hurt someone as a sport. Love for today, love and leave.
Breaking someone's heart is not something to be done lightly, as in a practical joke or for
a dare (that's just disgusting). People – even if they are wrong for us – are delicate and can hurt
like hell. They can also turn psycho and boil our bunnies, which is the kind of complication
that makes closure tricky. But enjoying someone without the desperation and countdown of a
commitment is a welcome bridge between serious relationships. Use a stop watch if necessary.
Give yourself a time-limit. When the alarm goes, dump.
When we've broken up with someone (if at all possible with tenderness and compassion),
we realise (duh) that we are capable of being someone other than the dumpee. Having stood in
the shoes of the breaker of hearts, we appreciate how carefully words need to be chosen, how
timing is everything and how some people, despite our clearest message, won't let go until we
say the thing they really don't want to hear: that it is actually them and not us.
Nothing changes on the couch. The cat might curl up in our laps, but that's it in the
excitement stakes. We have to get out there and become the shapers of our own destinies.
Once we're married we need to remember that marriage is an option, not a life sentence.
We didn't fall into it, we chose it. We're not stuck, we're not victims, we're not waiting for
anything. And if need be, we can (because we've done it before) be the one to walk away.
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8
Buy Your Own Car
Unless we've managed to finagle a genealogical miracle as the offspring of a millionaire or the
beneficiary of a large estate – or we've been saving our pocket money since we were four years
old – we will probably, by the time we need one, not be able to buy our own car. Not without
a little effort.
Buying a car is like our first hangover, our first real kiss. Just as that spike to the temple
after too much whisky cannot be delegated, and the lingering thrill of that kiss sears our virgin
lips and ours alone, buying a car is only something we can do on our own.
Why a car? Why not a house? A round-the-world trip?
A car symbolises our first step into adulthood. We are only eligible for a driver's licence
when we are deemed, by law, responsible enough to be let loose on the roads. It is a large (but
not too large) financial investment. A car gets us places. It gives us mobility and independence.
It facilitates us making our own decisions about where we want to be and how to move from
place to place.
If we always expect others to get us from point A to point B we're really after a nanny,
not a life partner. Aside from hair in unexpected places, and rampant narcissism, there are
few things less attractive in a partner than learned helplessness. A person who doesn't drive
because they don't want to is telling us something much more than that they lack gross motor
skills.
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Buying our own car is something we can only do if we are earning our own money. There is
only one way to say this: we really aren't ready to get married until we are capable of doing
just that.
Buying a car forces us to budget, negotiate with a bank, see what's on the market,
test-drive a few models, assess safety features as well as the look, sign a contract and drive
carefully.
All of these are essential skills in marriage.
We can't always hitch rides with others. In life, we have to be our own ride.
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9
Own a Pet
If things proceed in the ordinary course or sometimes even by 'accident' there will (barring the
misfortunes of infertility) be kids. There usually are. Obviously men and women have different
experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. But gender dissimilarities aside, we all
have vastly diverse takes on what is 'normal', 'functional' and 'the right way to raise kids' given
that we were each subjected to a unique form of emotional torture growing up in our particular
families.
Kids are the kind of surprises we never knew we weren't prepared for. Since there is no
way to pre-order even the sex of a child, we cannot unfortunately appeal for one that is healthy,
allergy-less, sleeps through the night, doesn't have projectile vomiting, is well-balanced,
devoid of psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies and one who will not end up becoming a
drug addict, a teenage parent or running off with a tattooed biker by the name of Spike. No, we
get what we get. That's how it goes with kids.
One day they arrive in our lives, personality intact, to consume most of the time, space
and money in our marriages, for about 18 years or so.
There really is no way to prepare for kids. But a little pre-reproductive practice might
help. For this we need to make our way to a pet shop or the nearest RSPCA. Choose a dependant.
Name it. Cuddle it. Wipe up its vomit and pick up its poop.
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Love it. Give it food and water. Reward it for good behavior and reprimand it for
disobedience. Love it. Take it to the doctor for its shots. And love it and love it and love it.
It's best to start small. If Fluffy would rather become a stray than remain in our care, or
Goldie is found floating belly-up in her fishbowl, we may have to reconsider our readiness to
procreate.
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10
Spend a Holiday with People with Small Kids
The most common fear when flying is not fear of turbulence, nor of crashing into the ocean.
It is not even the claustrophobia of being stuck in an airtight capsule breathing in stale air for
hours on end. It is that dread pre-takeoff when a harassed woman laden down with bags and
with a small person attached to her hip says, 'Excuse me, I think I'm in the seat next to you'.
While we have a ghastly trip ahead of us, we will get off the plane without a trace of halfdigested food, crayon or mashed banana on our blouse, which is more than can be said for
our fellow traveler.
Imagine life as one long plane trip with a child on your lap. That's having kids.
Kids, as cute as they can be, are little stress factors, testing even the most robust of
romances to bursting point. We can't know, until we're there, what kind of parent we will be
or what kind of children we will have. Colic, cutting teeth, potty training, temper tantrums,
learning difficulties, behavioural problems, ADHD, take on meaning only once we are in the
thick of them. Parenthood is emotional Russian roulette. It will test the limits of our endurance
in terms of sleep deprivation, personal space invasion, noise pollution and neurosis. Having
someone else's life depend on us entirely has a way of making us shit ourselves in a way that
can induce a medical condition.
It is therefore incumbent upon us to at least test the waters and spend a long holiday with
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people with small kids. At least one should be in nappies and teething, another should have
'sleep issues'. The other should preferably have a range of allergies, combined with excessive
reactions to all medications that could soothe the condition.
The incessant whining has nothing to do with the parent's IQ or lack thereof. The relay
of five-minute temper tantrums are no indicator of the parents' personality or genetic disorders.
What we see is what we will get. Picture yourself and your intended spouse bickering over
whose turn it is to change the 17th nappy of the day or who should have to pull the chewing
gum out of the carpets.
Also while we're at it, we should find out what words like 'positing', 'colostrum' and
(my personal favourite), 'episiotomy' mean. By the time the doctor says, 'I'll have to do an
episiotomy', it's too late to ask for a dictionary.
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11
Break Wind
We simply have to get this one over with before we get married. Despite all that clenching and
withholding, biologically everyone passes wind. We all know this, right?
When it comes to passing wind, timing is of the essence. I don't for example recommend
it on a first date. Clinch for all you're worth. But when it gets past the six month mark, and we
are still working that sphincter muscle and slipping outdoors for a secret fart, we need to fess
up, and just break the flatulent silence.
There's a great kids' book called Everyone poops. Adults should read it too. Though we
douse ourselves in expensive perfumes, we're all subject to the same irreducibly stinky laws of
nature. Our perspiration, urine and other ablutions all congregate in the same odour category
as the next persons. We're all so busy trying to make a good impression, which for many of us
involves giving ourselves a digestive disorder that comes from failing to release what is very
much intended to be liberated.
If we travel together and live together, we will have many opportunities to practise
letting go. But some of us will finesse it so that even though we've spent ridiculous amounts of
time with someone, we still haven't passed the wind test.
Consider that a few years down the line, our partner is going to be the one holding the
bucket while we succumb to the heaves of full blown morning sickness. No doubt he will insist
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on front row seat views during child-birth. Things get gory. What's a little wind between
lovers?
It's so much more relaxing to be at ease in our own bodies, because gravity and old age
will have their way, eventually. When our boobs are knocking at our knees, and the teeth are
in the water for the night, we want to know we're just as loveable as ever. I have overheard
entire conversations between old married couples consisting of a blow-by-blow account of
their morning movements in the cloakroom.
The tantalisations of youth and beauty are invariably, cruelly, stripped away. A cosy bed
at the end of the day and a morning on the loo thanks to Metamucil are some of life's greatest
awaiting pleasures.
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12
Have Lunch with a Bitter and Twisted Divorcée
Ever had one of those conversations with someone who looks perfectly decent on the outside
but who, after a glass of wine or six, turns out to be an emotional pretzel of rage against an exspouse? That Rocky Road ice cream seemed so alluring, not to mention the cat, who, far from
being bitter and twisted, is psychotically content with the windowsill and Whiskas.
Love can descend into genuine hatred, replete with its own legal team, eclipsing the
reality that these two people must have adored each other at some point in their lives, cuddling
like lovebirds, bonking like rabbits. Years later, they're squabbling like vultures over a carcass
about every last penny, snatching at custody gaps, and doing things they otherwise, in their
right minds, would probably condemn as immoral and demeaning.
In the rubble of a relationship, we tend to default into blame and hatred, singeing
ourselves and each other because it's really just too hard to take responsibility for our own role
in things that don't work out. We never, for example, consider for a moment that perhaps
we may have started the fire.
People get bitter and twisted when they believe all the bad things that have happened
to them are someone else's fault. They, of course, are blameless. But here's something to
ponder: sometimes it's the bitch calling him the bastard, or the asshole calling her the cow.
That old adage about the tango keeps us alive to the fact that a relationship is a duet, not a solo
performance.
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Perhaps we were treated badly. But maybe we were too nice. If someone walked all over
us why were we mistaken for a doormat? If he lied and cheated and stole and drank, wasn't
there a word missing from our vocabulary: NO?
Before marriage, it could be sobering to listen to the story of the bitterest, most twisted
of divorcées we can find. Think of this as a crime scene and you as the detective. Ask questions.
'Where were you on the night this relationship broke down?' Wait for the nasty shore breaks
of invective to pass. Unless she's Lorena Bobbit, 'I hope his balls fall off' is just a turn of
phrase. Beyond the bitterness is a place where the waters are calmer. In every broken heart, the
romantic fantasy fell by the wayside. Dreams got lost. Silence crept in. Words became barbs.
When we listen to 'never again' stories, we may be able to pinpoint where softness disappeared
and blame began, to trace expectations that were unmet, that were perhaps unrealistic to begin
with.
Ask: 'How did it fall apart? What mistakes do you think you made along the path? Were
there signs that things were deteriorating? Could this marriage have been saved? What would
you do differently if you could start over?'
Hearing someone talk about a soul-punishing divorce raises questions for us: Would
we stay if our spouse stole from us? Cheated on us? Lied to us? Assaulted us or our children?
Verbally abused us? Was debilitated by disease or accident? Started taking drugs or drinking
heavily? Got retrenched?
There isn't a relationship under the sun that doesn't need daily tending and hard work.
Like housework, laundry or exercise, relationships are a day-by-day affair, and need a little First
Aid every now and then. Relationship CPR is a lot of NOT BLAMING and NOT REACTING.
Ten deep breaths and a walk around the block when someone has just stuck their finger into
our emotional bellybutton, eye or nostril, gives us time to figure out how to respond, or to
formulate a killer comeback. Then of course there's always the benefit of make-up sex, God's
reward to people who continue to stay together when they are unhappy.
Every single bitter and twisted divorcée took the same vows you are about to take. Not
one of them entered marriage imagining he or she would end up divorced.
As we listen, we may find ourselves reclining luxuriously in the hammock of smug selfdelusion and thinking: This could never be me ... But you never know ...
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13
Take an Old Soul who has Loved the Same Person for Life
for a Walk in the Park
Once you've been sobered into a cold pre-marital sweat by the horror stories of love-gonepsycho, and your notion of happily-ever-afters has been kicked in the belly, it's time to switch
channels and listen to stories of those who have triumphed in love.
Young love is immature and unformed, it giggles too much. It values passion over
kindness, physical over intellectual compatibility and almost always chooses a night on the
dance floor over a night in with a bottle of wine and a dvd. We need some old, leathery, love.
Love with an elephant hide and a rhinoceros skin. These days we don't seem to have much use
for old folk. Discarded and devalued, we've made them into burdens, rather than the revered
oracles of wisdom they used to be. But we can seek them out. If we look for them, we will find
them, hidden in old age homes, stuck away in back rooms, nestling in the nooks and crannies of
our family trees. There we may find someone who has loved the same person his or her whole
life – a person who has remained devoted to the hunched up old skeleton in the wheelchair or
the corpse buried fifteen years ago who was once – and always – the love of their lives.
Old people love a little stroll in the park especially if it comes with a captive audience.
Presuming they still have their hearing faculties, we can ask a couple of questions. How did
they know when they'd met 'the one'? Were they faithful always? What made their marriage
work? When did it get tough? How did they make love survive the hard times? With a little
luck and infinite patience, we could walk away with some kernels of wisdom, refined over
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time, mulled over in a heart that has loved long and hard.
When I was flitting from one crazy artist boyfriend to another revolutionary lefty, my
granny noted, 'They're all very interesting, these men of yours, dear, but can't you just find
someone a little more ordinary?'
She had married young and had been miserable for longer than anyone should. I asked
her if she had married for love. 'Oh no, my darling, we never marry for love. We marry for
what's right at the time. We never marry the ones we truly love...' I asked her, 'Gran, what's
the most important characteristic of a man you're contemplating marrying?' Without skipping
a beat, she said, 'He must be handsome. A man must be handsome. Be practical, my darling.
You have to look at him for a very long time.'
People who have kept a relationship going over decades know a few tricks about the
art of making love stay, of making it stretch, over hardships, setbacks, disappointments. If we
speak to them, we might find out their secrets. Ask, 'What do you think you two got right? How
did you make love last? How could you forgive her? Why didn't you leave?'
Don't ever droop in disheartening awe and think: this could never be me. Someday we
too could be clutching a zimmer frame and reminiscing fondly about our life-long love affair
to some poor sod in a pre-nuptial sweat.
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14
Meet the Family
Unless we were raised by wolves in the wild or we're unlucky enough to be a real orphan, we
all come attached to the huge unwieldy multi-headed parasite of a family.
It is tricky enough negotiating our own families, but inheriting someone else's is a
relationship psychometric test involving an elaborate adoption process of a troop of grownups who have had years and years to refine their individual personality disorders and emotional
problems before we came along.
Other people's families arrive fully opinionated and laden with dynamics that are
designed to ensure we feel intermittently:
a) unwelcome
b) not-good-enough
c) like we owe them something
d) like our parents didn't bring us up right.
There is an industry of comedians that makes a living off mother-in-law jokes, which
only seems cruel until we've actually got one of our own. Unless we're a neurosurgeon with
a holiday home in the Bahamas, we will never be 'good enough'. If we do manage to be a
fabulously wealthy doctor and, therefore, qualify in mother-in-law terms as 'good enough', we
will invariably be regarded as an 'affluent snob'. When it comes to mothers-in-law, there is no
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way yet known in the human experience to win her heart. New brothers and sisters-in-law take
liberties, express opinions and borrow money without the requisite blood ties or shared family
history to excuse this level of manipulation and interference.
When it comes to the family-in-law, simply surrender to being the princess or the slob.
The loser or the pretentious gold digger. Smile and wave. Take none of this personally.
Becoming a member of an existing family unit is like a body adapting to a new organ.
Expect rejection.
Don't wait until the wedding to meet the family. Get it over with early on. Be very nice
to everyone all the time – hold the baby, ooh and aah over the childhood pictures of your
partner, comment on your mother-in-law's cooking, her taste in clothing and her perfume,
even if you choke on every bite, hate kaftans and her perfume brings on your asthma. When
it comes to the family, just make a good impression – even if you have to bite an old shoe to
stop yourself from saying that thing that's just pulling at the leash of your tongue to get out.
Do a cursory check of the gene pool to gauge which hereditary conditions may be
silently imported into our relationship (diabetes, twins, SIDs, breast cancer, heart disease).
This could help with genetic counselling when we're planning to have kids. (See, this is where
love gets way too serious).
There is also no better opportunity to see history-in-action than by sitting around the
table with the family-in-law. If burping competitions are the norm or no one is on speaking
terms, or Ethel is jealous of Maud because of an inheritance the one got and the other didn't ...
we'll have a heads-up on the dynamics that shaped our beloved.
The important thing is not to panic. All families are dysfunctional. Our spouse will be
reeling in equal horror once he's met ours.
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15
Tell the Truth
Without the special effects, falling in love would be more like a negotiation. In the early days,
we airbrush the hell out of our ugly bits and do the full make-over on our lovely bits. While
we're still in the window-shopping stage of a relationship, we all hold back on bringing out the
pathetic, victimised and wounded parts of ourselves. Besides, they are, like, so unsexy.
But this is only the fantasy-phase of 'you're-so-gorgeous-no-you're-so-gorgeouswe're-so-gorgeous'. So a couple of months in, there will probably be things we have failed
to mention. There could be a couple of white lies tucked away. Possibly even some absolute
stinkers. Those insane risks, one-night stands, lawsuits, chances we took, come up for parole.
Dodgy things we've done in the past and hope we've buried deep enough may start to nag our
conscience.
There's no guarantee that if we air our secrets, our partner will not wish us all the very
best for a happy life as he or she hops on a bus – or rush to the nearest loo for a puke (who can
ever forget that scene in The Crying Game?) Which is exactly why we have failed to mention
them in the first place. Isn't it safer to pretend? What's a bit of concrete over the past? A few
lies to smooth things over? If we're a good enough liar, we may even convince ourselves that
we don't belong to that history at all.
George Castanza in Seinfeld says, 'It's not a lie if you believe it.' But everyone knows
that's a lie.
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Have you noticed how soap operas DEPEND on the spectacular exposure of non-disclosures?
As soon as the priest chants, 'If there is anyone here today who knows of any reason why these
people should not be joined in holy matrimony ... ' someone at the back always has to ruin
things – with an illegitimate child, an adulterous affair, an inheritance or a sex change. It
makes for dramatic daytime TV, but it's no fun if it's your life.
So, to tell or not to tell?
Here's one way of looking at it: our secrets are what make us interesting. They have
shaped us, scarred us, brought us to our knees, changed our minds, given us meaning, made us
fight back. Privacy is a non-negotiable right in marriage, and sometimes things buried are best
left buried. But perhaps some secrets do need to be shared with the person we're intending to
lie next to for the rest of our lives.
One way to decide is: does my secret matter to our relationship, either because it affects
my health (physical or mental) and therefore could affect my partner's? Or asked another way:
curiosity aside, if this were my partner's secret, would I want to know this information?
My guess is that we may want to share things like: having had a termination, being
infertile, being a drug addict (or a recovering addict of any kind); suffering from any kind of
illness whether it is bipolar disorder, depression, any kind of venereal disease; being a survivor
of incest or rape; having a criminal record; having worked in the sex industry; being the
subject of a criminal investigation or a law suit ... if Jerry Springer would want it, it probably
needs to be shared.
Of course, the other option is to lie with a straight face and cross our fingers that the
truth stays put. But the truth always turns up like an uninvited relative, despite the weight of
the chains and rocks we've attached to it before tipping it into the sea. Then there are two fires
to put out – the secret itself and the hurt of betrayal.
We're going to be hearing: 'Why didn't you tell me?' for ages from an angry, wounded
partner. Despite their feelings about the abortion, the misdemeanor or their best friend we
happened to sleep with which, of course, meant nothing, our partners will feel deceived. They
will certainly wonder (maybe with good cause) what else we have not disclosed.
In this instance, time is our only friend. Unexpected information has to be absorbed,
and we are not emotionally made of the same stuff they use to make those super-handy paper
towels. When our sense of self or the person we love has taken a hard slap to the face, we need
to step away and let the relationship breathe.
I do believe that if someone falls out of love with me because of my mistakes, accidents,
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curiosities and regrets of the past, then better now than later. Do you want the pressure of
perfection? I don't. I don't want to be put on a pedestal or to be held to an unrealistic standard.
When I am allowed to be less than perfect, that gives my partner permission also to be.
When someone we love spills their beans, it tests the limits of our forgiveness and
tolerance. These confessions can backfire. But isn't the alternative – to continue lying and
concealing – too stressful?
Honesty, I reckon is all about timing. And intimacy is largely dependant on honesty.
My policy is to get all this muck raked over upfront. To pile it up on my lover's doorstep
and say: 'That's me, warts and all – how about you?' I once gave a boyfriend a list of all my
defects. Laughter shattered our shames and turned them into adored traits.
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16
Lock the Door to your Secret Garden
Part of the reason marriage scared me gutless for so many years is that I really like being on
my own. I imagined that, as soon as that ring went on my finger, I was going to have to make
space in all my secret private places for someone else: my early morning walks, my girlfriend
gossips, my book club, my email correspondence, my bubblebath.
While Barney the Dinosaur has done for sharing what George Bush has done for world
peace, I get the sense that there can be 'too much' sharing, even without the purple dinosaur
suit. I don't, for instance, understand why any woman would want to accompany a horde of
men to a football match, a pub or to rugby practice. Or why any man would want to tag along
to a girl's evening. It's called down time and doesn't everyone need it?
The other course is to smother the person you're with and never let them out of your
sight. To question them about their whereabouts, go through their pockets when they're not
looking, check their text messages and whine jealously whenever they speak to someone of
the opposite sex. But how much fun is this for either party?
Some days I just want to eat my chocolate without giving anyone else a bite. I want to
curl up and cry without someone asking me, 'What's the matter?' I want to swear like a crazy
person and not have to say 'sorry'. I want to read old love letters and write self-indulgent
poetry. Some days I want to forget I am married, be alone and not feel like I have to put any
39
effort into intimacy or being nice to someone else. It's my secret garden. I think everyone
should have one where they can enjoy peace and quiet away from the Velcro of marriage.
Telling the truth is about playing with an open hand. But do we really need to share
every emotion and thought with our partners? I don't think so.
There is a beautiful Sufi story about this old guy Nuri Bey. One of his servants whispered
in his ear that his young wife was acting suspiciously – she wouldn't let the servant look inside
an old chest in her room. Nuri Bey then asked his wife if he could look inside the chest. She
said she would prefer him not to. But she offered him the key to the locked chest on condition
that he get rid of the servant. Nuri Bey did as she asked, and sent the servant packing. But he
saw that his wife was troubled. So he called his gardeners who took the chest to a distant part
of the garden and buried it.
Why do I love this story? Nuri Bey could have done the typical over-bearing male 'I'm
the boss of you' thing, and ripped that chest open. But instead, he chose to respect her wishes
and her privacy. I like this story because, though it seems counter-intuitive, I think it's true
that, when we protect someone else's privacy, far from losing self-respect, we gain it.
I'm quite certain we can't bully people into sharing themselves with us. People tell us
their stories, share their secrets, their fantasies and regrets only when they feel safe with us.
This takes time and we don't get there by manipulating, wheedling and nagging for attention.
Privacy is not necessarily secrecy. If someone we love needs time alone, that is not a rejection
of us – it gives us time to be alone too.
Many marriages are neurotic, co-dependant connections of possessiveness in which
people eke out some kind of life together. Mills & Boon have marketed this as romance at its
best. But if you ask me, I don't want to make my husband jealous. I don't want to feel owned.
I just want some space to frolic in my secret garden now and then. And I'm only too happy to
let him frolic in his.
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17
Know yourself
Did you really think all your spouse was bringing into the relationship was an old bookcase
and a stamp collection? As if. We all drag an invisible crater or two of psychological baggage
across the threshold. There it stays until we unpack it – the unmet needs of our childhoods,
the dynamics of our dysfunctional families, our low self-esteem, our separation anxiety and
repressed grief, to name a few.
We can't help who we are. But we can shape who we become. All the wounds of our
past can either become fertiliser for our marriage to grow or the stuff we use to destroy each
other.
It helps if we already have some idea of just how messed up we are to begin with, or,
to use Socrates' phrase, if we spend some time getting to 'Know Thyself'. According to the
history books, those were the words of wisdom Socrates received from the ancient oracle at
Delphi. Plato felt a little more strongly about it and declared that 'the unexamined life is not
worth living'. The philosophers and poets were quite hung up on solitude, self-knowledge and
insight as the stepping stones to loving and being loved.
Marriage is one place where investing in emotional intimacy has the potential to yield
a phenomenal return given that it is a lifelong association we are hoping to forge.
Do you know what pushes your buttons? That, like those energy-saving eco-green light
bulbs, will save a hell of a lot of time and energy in the early days of a marriage as we're
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figuring out the difference between a landmine and a little loose soil. Do you hate being told
something more than once? Do you see red when someone moves your things? Could you
just castrate backseat drivers, or those who don't put the loo seat down or people who help
themselves to food off your plate or who don't call when they're going to be late or ... ?
If we are aware of the patterns we seem to repeat and the mistakes we continue to make,
we can – guess what? – actually do something about them. Personal insight helps us anticipate
conflict (brilliant, next time we can avoid it), not take the bait (remain cool while the other
party froths at the mouth) and bite our tongues (not everything we think in anger needs to be
said, as the aftermath of such encounters bears out).
It seems not to matter how we choose to know ourselves – pick a path, any path: therapy,
spiritual practice, meditation, creative art, marathon running, origami lessons or belly dancing
(channel-hopping and beer drinking are NOT spiritual paths). All that matters is that we learn
something about ourselves in the process.
If self-awareness seems self-indulgent, just think of it as putting on those 3D glasses
that show up who we are so we can draw nice big highlighter circles around our pain, and
around our partner's. That way we can negotiate around these treacherous places instead of
charging through them like a Rottweiler through the hung laundry.
When we know enough about ourselves, we may find ourselves able to pull a 'Do you
need a hug?' out of the hat instead of (with fully sarcastic voice): 'No prizes for guessing who's
got a particularly bad case of PMS this month.'
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18
Know the Other
It's hard enough getting to know ourselves. How do we begin to know someone else? Especially
if so much of early love is one big exaggeration with a lot of glossing over the prickly bits.
What does NOT count as knowing someone is being able to recite his or her favourite
colour, band, breakfast cereal or mobile phone ring tone. That's Relationships for Beginners.
There's still a way to go to get to the real stuff.
Once we've traveled, met the family and shared our secrets, we have a more realistic
image of who they are, warts and all. But we still tend to avoid difficult conversations, especially
in the early days, because we don't want a fight, we just want a cuddle. We don't want to put
someone off, we want to turn them on. So we skirt around the big issues as we make a huge
fuss out of the trivialities – Oh my god, our birthdays are in the same month! Can you believe
how we both loved Zoolander? I've also got a younger sister!
But if we're talking marriage, the Big Questions are sitting there like the elephant in the lounge
that no one is prepared to acknowledge. The biggest blunder we can make here is to assume
we know the answers to these questions. We need to ask, even if we get answers we don't like.
If the answers shatter our illusions, we're already onto Relationships for Intermediaries.
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As far as I can tell, these are the Big Four:
(i) Kids
(ii) God and Religion
(iii) Politics
(iv) Gender roles.
No matter what we think we know about how our partner feels about these issues, we have to
ask:
Do you want kids?
If the answer is no, it could be a costly mistake to hope quietly for a change of mind
down the track. People tend to have very fixed ideas about whether they want kids, since
having kids is not like having a nap or having a party. If a no-kidder ends up having kids, it's
probably due to an outstanding effort of manipulation and guilt on the part of their spouse.
Long term that could spell trouble. It's easier to compromise on different answers to 'How
many kids do you want?' because numbers are more easily negotiable.
Is religion / god / spirituality part of your life? Will we bring the kids up to be
religious / traditional / observant? If we are of different faiths: which faith do we follow? What
traditions from each of our faiths are important to you?
Again, religion and spirituality are not subjects on which people have no feeling or
opinion. Often our responses are deeply embedded in our histories, our families and our sense
of identity. The only way to tread here is with the utmost respect for differing views. An
innocuous God or Jesus joke can be perceived as unforgivable blasphemy.
Who do you support politically?
Here is one area where people can and do change their minds over time as governments
change. But political affiliations indicate the kinds of values with which we identify and go to
the core of our aspirations for ourselves and humanity.
Do you believe a woman's role is in the home? Should a wife work? Can a wife earn more than
her husband? How thick should the stick be for beating a woman?
No matter how enlightened a SNAG claims to be, old attitudes about who should be cooking,
doing the laundry and changing the nappies creep into the most egalitarian of arrangements,
even when a woman is working full-time. And if he so much as pauses for one second over
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that last question, ditch the dude.
These are some of the big questions – there may be others which need to be addressed
if you and your partner come from different races, languages, cultures and traditions.
While we should be at pains to avoid this having the look and feel of an inquisition, we
should approach it as a fact-finding mission. If we don't get the answers we were hoping for,
there's no need for us to summarily write someone off (the obvious exception to this being
the width-of-the stick question). We can use these as growing edges in our relationship.
Tolerance and compromise help us grow together. Over time, things may change in our
relationship.
We'd do best not to marry for what we're hoping we'll get. We have to marry what's here
today. If we like and accept what's in front of us in this moment, the chances are we'll be more
willing to work with the stuff that hits the fan further down the track.
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19
Know your Rights
No one gets an exemption from hard times on their marriage licence because marriage tends
to follow the way of life generally. Suffering is just an inherent part of all experience, as is
ambivalence, and change.
For all the bouquets and confetti that are strewn at its inception, marriage is a legal
contract. When we're in love, we're probably thinking about the silky softness of her thighs or
the birthmark on his shoulder and not about extricating ourselves from a complicated emotional
and legal arrangement.
We tend only to seek information about our rights when we feel wronged. Which is kind
of like asking about the side-effects of a drug after we've taken it, or about the after-effects of
an operation after the surgery. Knowledge – of ourselves, of our partners, and of our rights – is
power. It informs our behaviour. Nothing is as powerless as ignorance.
Medically, we'd be at pains to get information about all the things that could go wrong
before we agreed to a procedure. This is considered a crucial aspect of real consent. Everybody
needs to know: 'What's the worst that can happen?' So that when we come around in recovery,
there are no nasty surprises waiting for us and the doctor can always rely on the disclaimer,
'but I warned you ... '
Marriage has legal consequences – for our status, our responsibilities, and our financial
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assets. They differ depending on the laws of the country governing our marriage as well as the
marital property regime under which we say our 'I dos'.
Before we commit, it would be sensible to spend some time learning what exactly it is
we are committing to.
The problem with knowing our rights, is that we have to anticipate the exact scenario
that is virtually impossible when we are in love. Just at the point that we are planning how to
join hearts, bodies and households, we need to work out how to divide up the pie of our lives,
if and when it all crumbles.
Who gets what?
How much?
For how long?
The kids, the house and maintenance are the most hotly contested squabble-fodder as
people tear each other to shreds in the process, providing us with an endless supply of bitter
and twisted divorcées to take out for lunch and cross-examine.
Drawing up a pre-nup is about as much fun as writing a will. None of us wants to kick
the bucket, or trash the love-affair, especially while it's in full bloom.
But this is one place where a squeamishness for mortality and the painfully prosaic is
self-defeating. Fight for what is yours while it is still yours to fight for.
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20
Pay your own Way
When I was a young law lecturer, a professor colleague of mine said into his tea and biscuits
in the staff tea-room, 'All things being equal, it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich person
as it is to fall in love with a poor person.' I laughed at him and thought he was a fool. I was
an idealist back then. I did not have a mortgage or children. These days, I think there could
be a lot worse fates in this world than being the wife of a millionaire. I could employ a whole
staff just to manage the laundry, for instance.
The only scenario more appealing than being married to a millionaire is being the
millionaire my husband is married to.
Though we're brainwashed to believe that money doesn't equal happiness (of course it
doesn't), it does buy a lot of things to help us feel less miserable: a house, a one-way ticket to
Hawaii and the best divorce lawyer in town.
Being the wife of a millionaire who has us on the tight leash of a credit card is probably
romantic at first. But who's in charge? Though there will be heaps of Luis Vuitton handbags
and endless chauffeur driven vehicles, we may find ourselves a little short-changed on equality
and respect. Whoever controls the purse-strings, controls us. Ask any battered woman why she
stays. It is not, I assure you, for the company.
Money may not make us happy, but it makes us mobile. And mobility means independence
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and freedom. We will never be stuck if we are financially independent. In marriage, if we're
earning our own money, we can more easily maintain respect and equality and walk out
that door if and when we've had enough.
Divorce sucks everyone's life down the plughole. But the statistics show that it is
women who have been financially dependent on their spouse during marriage who suffer the
worst of all. There's even a phrase for it: 'the feminisation of poverty'. Women usually end up
getting custody of the kids, raising them alone, losing their home, and struggling to re-enter
the workforce either because of childcare responsibilities or rusty skills after long years of
changing nappies and doing homework.
Being married is not a career and it is no substitute for a career. Being domestically
overburdened wins us no awards. If you happen to be one of those women who is content to
spend her life washing socks and changing nappies in exchange for financial security, keep
scrubbing. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you're happy. But sometimes this barter
accounts for a certain unhappiness some women experience which manifests as depression
(postnatal or otherwise) and low self-esteem that comes from shuffling dishcloths all day long.
The consequences of marriage can in some instances, infantilise women and cement a
relationship of power – instead of equality – between husband and wife. Do you want always
to have to ask for money to buy flowers for the dining room table? Or to beg or barter sexual
favours for Robbie Williams concert tickets? When we earn our own money, we can make
self-affirming choices: this is who I am, this is what is important to me ... this and this and this
... without ever having to ask permission.
It goes without saying: never marry for money. Make your own.
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21
Loosen your Hold
Is that a noose around your neck? A vice on your arm? Oh, it's just your partner ... why aren't
you running like hell??!!!!
Possession is not love, much as our egos mistake the one for the other. It isn't fair or
right for someone to demand exclusive rights, copyright and absolutely no competition in our
affections. And it's not fair for us to demand that of someone else. If we're the insecure clingy
type, we will have to employ every ounce of our intelligence to resist the temptation to latch
and smother.
People run from desperation. Holding on too hard is a form of desperation. There is
a not-so-subtle difference between 'I can't live without you' and 'I would prefer not to live
without you'.
When partners say, 'If you don't love me, I'll kill myself'', the only thing to do is offer
them the number of a helpline and get in our car and drive until we run out of gas.
People who want all of us, all the time, exclusively at every living breathing moment, are
jealous and obsessive. They will have great trouble respecting our privacy, our independence,
our work or our friendships. If it seems romantic now, just picture that freaky tentacled love
ten years down the line. That's if you can still breathe.
When I was at university, I loved Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and felt very
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shortchanged by the affection of a particular boyfriend. I wanted a man who would 'love me
like Heathcliff loved Cathy'. I informed said boyfriend of my wishes. He looked at me with
alarm. 'So you want someone to be wild and insane with love for you? To howl at the moon, cut
his wrists, tear his hair out and crush his own fingers if need be? So, basically,' he concluded,
'You're looking for someone with a mental history – preferably someone psychotic?'
When I looked at it like this, I had to concede Heathcliff could have done with some
Prozac. The sex would have been great, but what a sulker!
I realised then that, what I really, as in really, truly, wanted, was to find someone who
would be confident in my affections and wouldn't think I was shagging every person I spoke
to.
I guess we all have to learn to loosen our hold on what we love and to trust that we are
loveable enough for the person we love to want to return to us. And if they don't, how does that
famous quote go? They weren't that into us in the first place.
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22
Like the One you're with
When it comes to long-term, I'm leaning towards an overwhelming certainty that it is more
important to like than to love.
Early love confuses the sanity out of us. Though we imagine we know it when we see
it, that pounding in our chest, that coursing through our veins, that humming in our thighs is
lust – love's prettier, younger, fickle sister who will move on to the next party just as soon
as she's had her way with us. While we can have a good time with her, she is nothing more
than love's cheerleader.
When those yummy feelings disappear or even slow down, we can jump to a horribly
mistaken assumption: that love has just upped and gone. Without so much as a goodbye note.
But this is a classic case of mistaken identity. Lust may have left the building. It'll be back.
And if it doesn't return, it doesn't mean it took love with it. Love may be curled up in the
armchair, quiet and happy while we screech and shriek because desire has gone walkabout.
Who knows what love looks like anyway? Just as God may be an old white bearded
fellow to you, or a pregnant black female to me, we all see Love with our own eyes and
hearts. It can be hard to tell. We've been dating for months, he says he loves me, but he forgot
our five-month anniversary ... / She says she loves me but she's not sure she's ready for a
commitment ... It may be difficult to get a straight answer to the question: 'Are you or are you
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not love? Yes or No?'
But we all recognise 'like'. We've all got friends. A friend or two? Just one friend? Most
of us can identify the comfort, security and safety of company that is supportive and generous
and is not solely focused on getting into our undies. Friendship tends to have fewer agendas,
anxieties and needs than love. It is far more trustworthy.
If we like someone – who they are, what they do, how they treat their mothers and
waiters, how they smell, what they look like, when they laugh or yawn, chances are we could
love them.
Which is not to say that, if there is no chemistry, we should dive into the placid depths
of 'like' and hope the fireworks will follow. It's just that sometimes that tall, dark, handsome
musician we've been looking for might be hiding inside that short, blond accountant we always
chat to over lunch, who makes us laugh.
If we think we love someone, but we don't like them, we're cruising for disappointment.
Long-term relies on a lot of 'like'. If we don't like the person we're shagging, there is a
psychological term for it, but love isn't it.
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23
Take Up Long Distance Running
As far as commitments go, marriage (until parenthood overtakes it) is still in the lead when it
comes to distance. Everyone who undertakes that oath does so with a view to forever. Many
of us imagine that our wedding day 'is the single most important event of our lives', but one
only gets to be a princess in a white dress for a day. Jack Kornfield's book After the Ecstasy, the
Laundry, while written about spiritual practice, could just as easily be referring to marriage.
A wedding is not a marriage. Saying 'I do' is a long-term legal undertaking as much as
it is a delightful rhyme for 'dooby-dooby-doo'. Planning a wedding is a great way to spend a
year. It is a distraction from going to the dentist, taking the dog to the vet and is a fabulous
incentive to lose that weight we've been meaning to shed for the past 10 years.
A wedding is all puffy dresses and corsages, making guest lists and ordering the wine. It
takes ages to plan but it is over in a matter of a few hours. Marriage is taking down the ribbons
and cleaning up the vomit of guests who drank too much of that wine.
If we imagine that nothing short of a commitment of marriage will deliver us the
assurance of someone's lasting affection, divorce statistics should put us straight. Fast forward
five or ten years – we are no longer that bride in the white dress with the frilly sleeves. We may
wish we'd kissed more people. We may wonder what Prague in the autumn looks like. We may
speculate about whether we could have gotten into that art course we put on hold. Regrets
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creep in. We look at our partner's flabby arms or beer gut and we think, 'I gave up all my
dreams for this?'
Marriage needs strong thighs to survive the long haul through the troughs of emotional
hardship and physical deterioration.
Beyond the first flush of adrenalin, lies the long road of commitment with someone,
through the hills and the valleys, along rough roads where every step hurts, and we cannot see
what's around the bend.
Long-distance running is excellent training for marriage. It breeds stamina to stay with
pain, to work through cramps and keep going forward. When every part of us aches, and we're
out of breath and we've got blisters on our feet, we keep going. That's marriage.
Marriage may not be a race, but it tests our endurance. If we've run a few marathons,
we'll know that even when it gets ugly, the pain eventually stops, the hills give way to lower
gradients, and we get a medal (called an anniversary) for not giving up.
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24
Resist the Pressure
Getting married is not a physical necessity like a full bladder or a tickly sneeze. Nothing will
happen to us if we hold it in.
Most of us, at some point between the end of puberty and the beginning of senility, will
undertake to do it – whether we anticipate it with glee, or have to be dragged to it kicking and
screaming. Some people do it just to avoid being looked at funny when they get to a certain
age and are still unhitched. Some people do it to dispel rumours of playing for the other team.
Others do it because their mother has made them promise to do so before she dies. While men
can withstand the pressure a little longer, due to procreative skills with a longer sell-by date
and notions of bachelorhood being not quite as demeaning as those of spinsterhood, most of
us feel the swelling of that tide.
I suspect most of us fall into marriage, much like we fall in love. It's that gaping pothole
we've been avoiding for years, which just finally catches up with us.
Chances are we will end up getting married without ever having given it (as in the
institution: what it stands for, what it expects of us, what we give up and what we take on)
much thought. Marriage is a fashion that has not, for all its shortcomings, gone out of fashion.
But is it right for us? The individual that we are. Can we take a moment to think about
it? To love and to hold. In sickness and in health, 'til death us do part. Are we ready for this?
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Perhaps there is something else we'd rather do with our lives, like teach English in povertystricken Africa or become a rock star. Maybe our life's purpose is, in my friend Helene's
words, to be a 'spare grown-up', to baby-sit other people's children so they can go out and have
a break.
Here are some reasons not to get married:
a) because everyone is doing it
b) to stop the mother-in-law from nagging
c) because our mother wants a wedding (or grandchildren)
c) because we think we'll be left on the shelf.
Marriage is not a course of action to be substituted for going back to university or finding
our life's purpose. It is not an antidote to depression, low self-esteem or poverty. It is just as
easy (and sometimes easier) to be unhappy, worthless and destitute hitched as unhitched.
We should do it only because it is – despite all our misgivings, anxieties and uncertainties
– what we want to do. The only pressure worth succumbing to is the pressure on our own
hearts.
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25
Marry Yourself First
In her book The Post Birthday World, Lionel Shriver writes that our decision about who to
marry is ultimately a decision about choosing who we will help die. Gulp. Who said anything
about dying, and does that involve bedpans?
Most of us never think beyond the deep-tongue kissing of the moment to consider that
we are about to make a sacred choice about who we would like to have holding our hand when
we give birth, lose a parent, get retrenched, sued, or a bad pap smear result. But that's the fact
of it. When we get married, we're making a choice about the first person we will call in a crisis,
the one who will sign consent forms if we need surgery in an emergency and the one who will
be the sole guardian of our children if we die first.
But barring these calamities, and if we're lucky, and we work hard at it, we just may
make it into old age together, with matching zimmer frames and geriatric diapers. That kind of
puts a whole new spin on the notion of 'romance'.
'I will love you, I will honour you, I will take care of you. I will not abandon you.'
These are, despite how glibly they may roll off our tongue, sacred vows. Before we say them
to anyone else, we should make these promises to ourselves.
If we forget who we are, give up our dreams and our personal goals, how can we honour
the vows we've made to someone else? If we can't be good to ourselves, in all likelihood, we'll
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be crap in marriage.
Once married, those primary vows to ourselves can keep us steady.
Marrying someone else does not solve our problems, take away our loneliness or save
us from anything. If we've put effort into becoming a person in our own right, by nurturing our
own friendships and spending time on our own, we can work that into our marriage, and make
space for our partner's too.
When we do get married, if we are true to our own vows, we may be able to balance
staying for the sake of the children over staying for the sake of us. We can be more centred
when making the decision about whether to stay for the sake of the money or for the sake of
the cat or the hi-fi or the washing machine.
If we have married ourselves first, we know we can only stay when staying is in alignment
with our commitment to ourselves.
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Conclusion
When I finally did get married and stood beneath an ancient tree barefoot with my husband,
our kids flanking us, rose petals strewn at our feet, I've got to admit I felt a little tweak on
my heart muscle. With all the jokes we'd been making in the lead-up to the big day, we both
stood a little humbled and awed at the vows we were making to each other. We made a lot of
promises. There wasn't a dry eye for miles.
I don't believe that loving someone is ever really a waste of time or effort in the way
that, for example, playing Scrabulous on Facebook or trainspotting is – even if it all goes
belly-up someday. At the very least, getting married is a great way to see all the people we've
been meaning to have over for dinner for the past fifteen years and to get some great shots of
us standing next to a pond with swans in the background.
My lovely Italian friend Vincenzo says in his thick Napoli accent, 'Marriage purifies us'.
'What do you mean, Enzo?' I ask.
'It shows us who we are. It makes us better than we are.'
Maybe I understand what he means. My husband has taught me so many things – like
how to fold shirts and file a tax return. I don't know if I feel purified, but I feel much more
organised. I also love the fact that I can't technically be called an alchoholic because I always
have someone to share a bottle of wine with. I have also given up hot water bottles because I
have someone to warm my feet against in winter, and who doesn't smell like burning rubber.
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If you don't think these are good enough reasons to get married, I may be forced to
concede that I believe any reason is good enough. Since there are no guarantees in life, we
have no choice but to take a leap of faith and just give it our best shot. Besides, guarantees
have a way of stealing the fun out of the journey, the surprise out of the Jack-in-the-box.
I hope you get to laugh more than you cry.
I hope the days that you wonder: 'Is this really the right person for me?' are few and
fleeting.
I hope your marriage is blessed with countless gestures of kindness, patience and
gratitude, not to mention mind-blowing sex, which only gets better and better as you get older.
I'm thankful I got to do these 25 things before I got married. I don't know if it will make
any difference in the long-run. But I had so much fun doing them. And if you're planning on
working your way down the list, I hope you will too.
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To help you, here is a list to keep in your back pocket.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
The Knot List: Things to do before saying ‘I do’
Travel alone
Travel together
Live alone
Live together
Sow your wild oats
Love and lose
Break some hearts
Buy a car
Own a pet
Spend a holiday with people with small children
Break wind
Have lunch with a bitter and twisted divorcée
Take an old soul who has loved the same person for
life for a walk through the park
Meet the family
Tell the truth
Lock the door to your secret garden
Know yourself
Know the other
Know your rights
Pay your own way
Loosen your hold
Like the one you’re with
Take up long-distance running
Resist the pressure
Marry yourself first
All done?
Ok, you’re ready
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Date achieved
Tick
Joanne Fedler is the author of The Dreamcloth (Jacana Media, 2005),
Secret Mothers' Business (Allen & Unwin, 2006),
Things Without A Name (Allen & Unwin, 2008) and
When Hungry, Eat (Allen & Unwin, 2010).
She is also a life coach, motivational speaker, mother, catlover, and wife (finally).
You can email her and tell her how much you enjoyed this book at
joanne@joannefedler.com;
connect with her on Facebook at Joanne Fedler Author
or order her other books from her website
www.joannefedler.com
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