Happiness is…

As of late, the topic of marital happiness has been a point of discussion in our circle of friends.  The friends in that circle represent a wide variety of marriage types – each functioning and dysfunctioning in their own unique ways (ours included).  The main point of contention has been whether or not a happy marriage is a healthy marriage.  Perspective and experience play a major role in how each of us answer that question – but no matter how differently your marriage functions – we all share the reality that marriages are never all sunshine and rainbows.

Ooh, when my baby kisses me chills run up and down my spine

I honestly can only remember one major brawl between my wife and I – it had to do with a major life/career change for our family.  Outside of that – we bicker occasionally over the usual subject matter – finances, parenting, where to eat for dinner.  We have experienced the highest of highs – the birth of our daughters.  We have shared the lowest of lows – two miscarried pregnancies and family deaths and illnesses.

Every moment, from the glorious first scream of our oldest being born, to the agonizing low of finding out my mother had terminal cancer – from the shared sunset on a Mexican beach, to the depressing pangs of uncertainty and unemployment – is a brush stroke on the canvas that is our life together.  You can’t judge a painting by the individual strokes.  One may be dark and strained while the next bright and flowing.  To understand the work, you have to step back and visually drink in the totality of the piece – each stroke playing off the next to create a work that stirs emotions deep within you.  When I step back and look at the work in progress – it makes me happy.

And that is the perspective that matters – how do you view the work as a whole?  A healthy marriage is not always a happy one – but it should paint a picture that fills you with happiness and joy.  It is lights and darks, highlights and contrasts all working together to create the masterpiece.

You know, there are tons of ways paintings are completed.  The heavy textured strokes of Van Gogh are vastly different from the painstaking dots of Seurat.  The abstract vision of Monet contrasts heavily with the classic style of Botticelli.  Then there are the bizarre works of artists like Dali, Pollock, and Ernst.  Each vary in style, technique, skill, color – and yet each artist produced works that are masterpieces in their own ways.

This is art???

Marriages aren’t that different. Each function in their own ways.  I have friends in relationships that are extremely patriarchal – where the husband rules the roost – and they are happy.  I have other friends where the wife is obviously queen of the castle – and they are happy.  Ours is a marriage of shared roles – and we are happy.  I have friends in a relationship where the wife pampers the husband with romantic gestures and he treats the wife like a queen – and while it makes some of us sick to our stomaches (just kidding guys) – it works for them.  There are others in a relationship where the husband mostly does his own thing, the wife does her own, and for them it works.

You can’t judge a couple’s relationship off of your own and can’t always determine the health of a marriage off of the current state of happiness you perceive.  Happiness, like art, is in the eye of the beholder.  Just because someone’s marriage doesn’t follow the rules of yours doesn’t mean they are any less happy.  Just because the “paint strokes” of a couple’s relationship are broken and dark, doesn’t mean they aren’t working on a masterpiece together.  Just because a couple is in the midst of a dark stroke, doesn’t mean their final work won’t be brilliant.

I love my wife.  Our marriage is a shared work where roles are fully shared.  My wife is my best friend and, I just have to say, probably one of the most low maintenance women I know.  Our interests are varied, our tastes differ – and by the standards of some – we are far from romantic.  What we have works for us.  We are working on becoming better artists – but in the end, I have no doubt that the work we create together will be beyond compare – a masterpiece amongst masterpieces – not because we are experts, nor because our marriage is so much better than everyone elses; but because it is ours.  Knowing that – makes me happy.