Shook up

[cjsmith]

A while back I mentally searched the list of women I knew, to see if I knew any who were happily married for a long time. My criteria were simple. The person had to be:

• Female
• Married
• In this relationship for TEN YEARS (I picked this because of statistics on divorce before and after the ten year mark - ten years is "pretty stable")
• Happy (not just biding her time until the kids are old enough for a divorce, not wondering what life would be like if, not trapped but grinning-and-bearing-it, not Working Through A Rough Time Right Now, but GLAD she's there)

I came up with one after a fair amount of thought. I have several other possibles. For most of these possibles I have to stretch one or more of the criteria - sometimes the length of time, and sometimes I don't know the lady in question well enough to say whether she's grinning and bearing it. But there was one DEFINITE.

So I thought of my own life, and I thought, okay, I'll try to stick it out. One out of hundreds of women I know -- hey, I can match those odds. I'm willing to work at it. She exists, so I know it's possible.

Last night I learned she's filing for divorce.

Y'know, I hate to sound like a cynic, but some days the cynical answer really does fit what I can see.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree it's possible to be both. I guess I was using the "rough time" phrase the way some folks seem to use it: "We're really in trouble right now and we're deciding whether to stay together or just bag it." I realize some rough times aren't that, which is cool.

Your Kathy is (as I told Joe about his Chris - gak, too many name duplications here) on my short list. I don't know her well MYSELF, but if she were grinning and bearing it, I trust YOU would know. Some men would, some wouldn't, YOU would. In my opinion.