Playing the Game of Marriage

“neither of us is happy
but neither of us wants to leave
so we keep breaking one another
and calling it love” Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

Stories of married couples who seem to have it all – youth, health, good looks, money, fame – usually don’t leave us indifferent. In pictures they gaze lovingly at each other, hands tightly clasped, their smiles so broad as if they were the guardians of true happiness which we, mortals, can only dream of. So, more often than not, we either love them or hate them.

What we don’t know is that, sometimes, behind these splendid, spotless pictures lie narratives seething with drama.

Hemingway knew this so well when he wrote the story of a dazzling couple who seems absolutely perfect, but whose marriage is riddled with profound crises: he is weak, dominated by his wife and, unsurprisingly, has a drinking problem; she is arrogant, ruthless and, unsurprisingly, has frequent affairs.

What keeps Francis and Margot Macomber stuck to each other after 11 years is nothing short of a transaction: “Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him.”

But truth has its own inexorable way of surfacing and demanding decisions – the Macombers make no exception.

The couple end up facing the darkest truths about themselves during a safari trip in the darkest part of Africa. Francis runs away in terror from a wounded lion and Margot despises him more than ever. She kisses their guide, Wilson, in her husband’s presence, and spends most of that night in Wilson’s tent. The next day, not feeling any fear whatsoever, only pure hatred and anger towards Wilson, Margot and himself, Francis kills a formidable buffalo and, for the first time in his life, he feels free, full of life, happy. Realizing the unforeseen metamorphosis her husband has undergone, she shoots him in the back of the head.

What a shocking ending to a love story that seemed to have descended from the heavens.

How did they get to a point beyond repair? we wonder.  

It’s clear that the actual death at the end of Hemingway’s short story mirrors the death of the couple’s relationship that may have occurred long before – perhaps, unbeknownst to them, soon after they walked down the aisle.

The very foundation of their marriage proved to be hollow – a sham. Francis considered his wife a trophy, one of his possessions to be envied for; Margot saw her husband as a commodity, a secure source of income that would satisfy her appetite for a laid-back, luxurious lifestyle.

Essentially, Francis and Margot’s story is the story of many dysfunctional married couples – people stay together, sometimes for a lifetime, for all the wrong reasons. At the core, I believe there are three.

But what do fear, guilt and shame have to do with marriage?

Marrige is both a vow and a sacrament.

It is not a let’s-do-this-and-see-what-happens type of game.

When you get married, says Jordan Peterson in one of his lectures, “you find someone as imperfect as you are, you shackle yourself to him/her and say: ‘You’re not running away.’ And you start to negotiate.”

But only when you have genuine love, respect and trust as the foundation of your marriage can you successfully negociate.

Otherwise, the marriage simply reinforces dysfunction, becoming a source of pain. And, unfortunately, the longer we stay in an unhappy marriage, the deeper the harm we cause ourselves, our spouses and our children.

The only way forward is to confront the truth.

What really keeps you in your marriage?

Is it worth negotiating?

Resources:

Ernest Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”