Secrets Of A Happy Marriage: Skye.

I

asked my husband what the secret of our happy marriage is (assuming we still have one, and I’m not jinxing myself by writing this and next week we’re filing for divorce and fighting over custody of the cat and the free Christmas carol cd that came with the Sunday papers) and his answer was this:

“No unrealistic expectations.”

Which threw me for a minute, because I had some very unrealistic expectation that he’d say “A well-developed sense of the absurd” or “My vast and mighty love for you O goddess-like one.” And also because I thought he meant “Low expectations.” You know – don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed, aim low and any scrap from the marriage table will seem like more than you deserve. Which doesn’t seem like the secret of a happy marriage so much as a recipe for dysfunction, low self-esteem and generalised misery, with a garnish of secret drinking and prescription drug abuse.

Now, our house may have its share of chaos and madness and out-of-tune ukelele playing, but we don’t have any of that low expectation stuff. Not one bit. A bit of further investigation (aka hassling of the husband) subsequently revealed that unrealistic expectations include:

1. Large diamonds
2. Either of us being someone or something we’re not.

Fair enough, I thought, so what are realistic expectations then? Some meaty husband/wife style conversation resulted in a list a bit like this:

Respect
Trust
Commitment
Love
Communication
A mutual capacity and willingness to evolve and adapt as a couple

And all those Dr Phil-type truisms which seem so trite and obvious but actually encompass vast oceans of meaning. I know a Dr Phil-ism when I hear one because I must have absorbed several volumes worth during my first year of motherhood, otherwise known as The Year of Being Stuck in the House at Nap Time But Too Sleep Deprived To Do Anything Except Watch TV. Don’t ask me for advice, don’t even hint that you might need guidance on an emotional issue, because my eyelids will flutter, my eyes will roll back in my head, and before you know it I’ll be rolling out southern accented words of wisdom, picked up by osmosis while slumped on the sofa zombie-like, too tired to sleep.

So what’s the secret, why don’t we have the dreaded unrealistic expectations, how have a pair of contrarian reprobates like us kept this all-singing, all-dancing, occasionally yelling, show on the road for the last seven years through the vagaries of the film industry and kidlet and a creative life full of unknowns? There’s no real answer of course (apart from my general ambivalence toward diamonds of any size at all, and the fact that he does most of the cooking), but my personal theory – vigorously refuted by husband – is that it’s because we didn’t like each other at all when we first met. He was a cocky arrogant male chauvinist (he actually told me “Save your breath sweedhard, you’re too cute for me to take you seriously.”), I was a loud and bossy little beast with a bad case of my-way-or-the-highwayitis, and together we were disastrous. Well, we were very unprofessional when we should have been very professional, and had a big fight in front of people we were working with and were the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.

We then got together in a pink cloud of romance which included mutual dislike, too much cheap red wine and some unsavoury acts in a back alley (“I hate you” sloppy pash “Me too” drunken grope, etc etc.) and a taxi (sorry driver, wherever you are, probably permanently traumatised), and then continued to knock along in a ramshackle haphazard fashion for ages before we worked out that we were utterly, thoroughly, gleefully meant for one another and nobody else. It was almost like we started our relationship in reverse, starting off at rock-bottom, but finding mutual respect and admiration and pure unadulterated fun as we went along, falling in love in the giddiest way only after we’d actually decided to get married. Knowing all our weaknesses but discovering our strengths and wonders together over time. Now I’m sounding like those people you see in Marie Claire articles and random Lifestyle Channel dating shows promoting arranged marriages as the most sensible way of building a strong relationship. Hmmm, where’s Dr Phil when you need him?

So there you have it:

Cheap red wine + mutual loathing + an arranged marriage = marital bliss!

PS. That photo up there was taken at about 2am at the end of our wedding reception, the orchids are wilted and many peach bellinis have been drunk and we are just about as warm and fuzzy as two humans can be. Awwww.