The secret of happiness is...
Not expecting to be happy. Because you won't be. At least, not if you're married.
According to the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, we should recognise that family rows and door-slamming teenagers are part of life. It expressed concerns that some modern counselling techniques risk promoting an unhealthy belief in unachievable domestic bliss.
In other words, forget all that romantic mulch and don't hope for too much. Love, at best will give you a few moments of joy, otherwise, it's just another coping strategy as you face the miseries and vicissitudes of life. Still; better off without a wife?
I must say I find this strangely comforting; after all, there is nothing finer than aiming for the highest things in the certainty you will fail. Anything else involves delusions, mediocrity or dangerous sentimentality.
UPDATE: Quink offers a ringing endorsement of marital life in the comments. It can, he says, "help both parties fend off total misery".
If I marry, it'll be for money. That will stave off a hell of a lot of misery.
*Not true for Tom Waits. As he freely admits, he'd have drunk himself to death now if it weren't for his current missus.
According to the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, we should recognise that family rows and door-slamming teenagers are part of life. It expressed concerns that some modern counselling techniques risk promoting an unhealthy belief in unachievable domestic bliss.
In other words, forget all that romantic mulch and don't hope for too much. Love, at best will give you a few moments of joy, otherwise, it's just another coping strategy as you face the miseries and vicissitudes of life. Still; better off without a wife?
I must say I find this strangely comforting; after all, there is nothing finer than aiming for the highest things in the certainty you will fail. Anything else involves delusions, mediocrity or dangerous sentimentality.
UPDATE: Quink offers a ringing endorsement of marital life in the comments. It can, he says, "help both parties fend off total misery".
If I marry, it'll be for money. That will stave off a hell of a lot of misery.
*Not true for Tom Waits. As he freely admits, he'd have drunk himself to death now if it weren't for his current missus.
Labels: stuff
posted by buff and blue at 10:47 am
3 Comments:
Being married, I'm safe when I say that the sort of wife one needs to avoid is the fiancée who keeps a stash of bridal magazines in the bog.
Marriage doesn't equate with happiness (though it can often be, and often is, happy), and it sometimes brings unhappiness, but a good one can help both parties fend off total misery. And have a laugh about it.
Better than following the smell of one's own farts around the house.
If I marry, it'll be for money. That will stave off a hell of a lot of misery.
Not if some Honoria Glossop type gets her hooks into you and forces you to make something of your wasted life. Though it would fend off a lot of my misery to witness such a thing happening.
I'm not the marrying kind myself. A husband seems an entirely superfluous accessory. I'd much rather spend the money on shoes.
Puss
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