Manolo for the Brides

An article I read recently riffs on the notion that allowing homosexuals and bisexuals to marry would somehow negatively impact the sanctity of marriage by positing that us heterosexuals (or as commenter David would say, str8s) are doing a fine job of making marriage a joke.

[New York Senate Democrat Diane] Savino’s argument was shocking and fresh. After an affecting nod to gay constituents, she began her genuine work. She dared us to consider the condition of contemporary marriage.

The sanctity of marriage, she said, could not possibly be endangered by permitting its access to same-sex couples. If there is any threat to the sanctity of marriage, she said, ”it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right, and we have abused it for decades”.

”What are we really protecting?” she asked before reminding us that, these days, husbands could be snared on television game shows.

The article goes on to describe how trashing the dress makes a mockery of marriage and that brides and grooms are focusing on everything from the wedding favors to the flavor of the cake instead of putting their energy into the marriage itself. While I, to some extent, can get behind the second point — namely that there are some brides and grooms who go ga-ga over the wedding without really thinking about what marriage means, I really doubt those people are in the majority. Some people take marriage lightly, but thus far, all those people have been heterosexual. It might turn out that homosexuals and bisexuals do a better job of preserving the sanctity of marriage, if only because they had to work so much harder for it.

And I simply cannot get behind the first point. The wedding isn’t the marriage; one can have the most frivolous of weddings and the most serious of marriages. Wearing one’s wedding dress into a pond to capture what have now become fairly ordinary photographs doesn’t mean one is any less committed to one’s spouse. At most, it could mean one is less committed to one’s wedding dress. Weddings are made of ceremonies and celebrations that commemorate a commitment. They aren’t the commitment itself!

But yeah, divorce. If trashing the dress doesn’t negatively impact the sanctity of marriage and letting gay folks marry won’t negatively impact the sanctity of marriage, maybe it’s divorce? Maybe divorce itself is the problem?

After all, one of the most simplistic arguments against gay marriage suggests that allowing it would lead to more divorce, though it’s never specified whether that’s because there’d be a larger body of married people seeking out divorces or because all us heterosexuals would be running out to get divorced because we’re super psyched that we can marry within our own gender pool now. “Gay marriage is legal now? Oh, snap! I’mma get me one of those! Bye, honey. I loved you once, but the pull of the gay is too strong to resist!”

In any case, a more important question might be: Does it matter? Frankly, I don’t care if allowing homosexual couples to marry would lead to a higher divorce rate. I don’t actually care much if my fellow heterosexuals do all the divorcing, either. The right to marry, after all, is bundled with the right to divorce. At will. For pretty much any reason. And as terrible a thing as divorce can be, it’s also the institution — if I might call it that — that allows abused women and men to escape their abusers… allows children to grow up in homes that aren’t clouded by anger… allows two individuals who might be perfectly good people but aren’t *good together* to have a second chance at happiness.

Should all people have the right to marry the consenting adults they choose to marry? Abso-freaking-lutely. Should all people have the right to divorce the whomever they choose to divorce? Again, yeppers. Do either of those rights make a mockery of marriage? I don’t think so. And for goodness sake, can we all agree that trashing the dress is not leading to divorce? Because that’s just plain silly.

After a lengthy debate, the New York State Senate voted 38-24 against a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The Marriage Equality Act was finally brought to the floor for an up or down vote today after overcoming legislative roadblocks from opponents. During the emotional debate, one of the bill’s sponsors, State Senator Thomas K. Duane of Manhattan, who is gay, said, “This legislation would merely provide me and tens of thousands of other New Yorkers with equal rights in New York State. It would make me equal in every way to everyone else in this chamber.”

My mom is a New Yorker and she’s been waiting for a really long time to marry her partner, so this just really really really gets my goat.

Though cake toppers I can get behind are few and far between, I’m almost always in favor of the formation of a union between the humble cake topper and sweets. Particularly if said cake topper is made of chocolate, and especially if it’s made out of really, really nice chocolate.

For those same-sex couples thinking of marrying in or around Manhattan, Martine’s Chocolates, a popular New York City chocolatier, now offers three styles of same-sex matrimonial duos crafted from fine chocolate. The chocolate grooms come dressed in tuxedos and boutonnieres, while the brides come in two, ahem, flavors: romantic and contemporary. The romantic brides hold bouquets and wear billowing wedding gowns, while the contemporary brides toppers are clad in form fitting wedding dresses.

Yummy!

And here’s a fun aside. More people in the U.S. are playing for keeps when it comes to marriage, or at least stopping at just one. New Census data shows 76% of Americans who have ever been married have married just once, reflecting a choice to stay with their partner or to not remarry after divorce or the death of a spouse. Nearly 20% of Americans have married twice and only about 5% have married three or more times, according to USA Today.

It strikes me that there are a lot of people out there who are missing the overall point of those two little words, “I do.” Sure, weddings are fun. We LOVE weddings here at Manolo for the Brides, obviously. We look at wedding dress after wedding dress. We watch the wedding shows. We debate the merits of wedding favors. In short, there can be no doubt that Twistie and I are gaga over weddings.

But as nutty as we are for nuptials, I think both of us (and all of you) realize that the wedding is just one day out of your life. It doesn’t matter if your wedding budget is $100 or $100,000… once the reception is over, you have a whole lifetime of marriage to attend to. Unfortunately, not everyone can be as smart as us! For example, a couple living in Germany recently decided to end their marriage on the same day they tied the knot. That’s right, the same day!

“He said he never wanted to see her again and wanted an immediate annulment, and she said the same thing,” a spokesman for police in the northern city of Hanover said Thursday.

And it’s not as if the newlyweds simply decided amicably to part ways. Of course not. Almost immediately after they said their “I dos,” the bride and groom began fighting, and the fight culminated in the groom trying to slice off the bride’s hair with a kitchen knife. To make a long story short, the police were called, a restraining order was filed, and only then did the couple say their goodbyes.

Yeesh! I tell you what — as much as I like weddings, I’d take a good, happy marriage over a perfect wedding any day of the week. I’d rather be like Philipose Thomas, 100, and Sosamma, 99, of Kerala, India. If both of them are still alive, they’ve been married for a cool 91 years. (I say “if” because the last report I could find said 87 years in 2005.)

That’s awesome, no? One interviewer asked the couple if they ever quarreled. “Never,” said Mr. Thomas. “A lot,” said Sosamma. The Beard and I would probably give the very same answers.

It’s been sixteen years since the day Mr. Twistie and I were married. Sixteen years of ups, downs, triumphs, crises, arguments, inside jokes, crab dances, shared meals, travels both separate and in tandem, trivial knowledge, momentous decisions, and a million different experiences I never dreamed of on the day we said ‘I do.’

If I had it all to decide again, would I, knowing what’s ahead?

You bet your sweet bippy I would!

And that is what I wish for all of you: a life you’d choose with the person you love most.

The other day I ran across an article in which several men told about the little moments and tiny things that made their current relationships so strong and likely to last. Reading it over, I couldn’t help but think about some of the things that have made my relationship with Mr. Twistie so rich, so rewarding, and so unquestionably forever.

After all, marriage is made up of those tiny moments far more than it is of the big things. It’s how you get along in the lull between storms, how you cope with the mundane details of life that determine how strong your partnership really is. But every relationship has a series of moments that remind us how special our partners are, and why we chose them rather than someone else.

The article had several wonderful quotes, but I was particularly struck with a couple I’d like to share with you.

Andrew Zimmerman has been with his girlfriend for fifteen months. This is an incident that happened early on in their relationship:

(more…)

I’ve been mostly blessed in the in-law department, though it may be due in part to the fact that The Beard’s family is teeny-tiny. Not everyone I know is so lucky. I have enough friends with scary sisters-in-law and maniacal step-mothers-in-law and boorish brothers-in-law to know that having a few states and a few thousands miles between myself and my extended family is a good thing.

You see, mother-in-law jokes aside, the stories submitted to sites like I Hate My Inlaws are not just pieces of fiction created by some deranged mind. Sure, one’s biological parents can be a nightmare, too, but one usually has a few decades in which to learn to deal with the idiosyncrasies of one’s own family. Prior to and upon getting married, one is immediately expected to become fast friends with nonblood kin of every description. As if.

So what’s the problem? A reasonably sane adult should be able to cope with a few strained familial gatherings per year, right? Would that it were that easy. You see, it turns out that new research has found that avoiding your in-laws (even the icky ones) can actually harm your marriage.

A husband or wife’s satisfaction with their in-laws is a dominant factor in how happy they are in their marriage, University of Denver associate professor Mary Claire Morr Serewicz found after spending six years researching family issues.

In fact, Morr Serewicz found in-law relations can represent 43 percent of a couple’s satisfaction in their marriage.

Forty-three percent? Yowza! Maybe it’s time to send your future sister-in-law a holiday card or give in and let your future father-in-law fix your brakes. If good relations must be established, why not start establishing them ASAP with a little holiday cheer? Then again, I’m a big fan of setting strict boundaries. If you’re slated to be married or recently tied the knot, this might just be the time to say “I love visiting with you, but it throws off my schedule when you drop by unannounced” and “No, I’m sorry we cannot drive four hours each way to visit you for two hours on Christmas Eve.”

A six-year study might tell us that positive in-law relationships are integral to a good marriage, but I’d venture to guess that sometimes the best thing you can do to maintain good relations between people who mix about as well as oil and water is to avoid one another as much as possible.

I have to get a little political…just a little, I promise. And what I’m about to say has nothing to do with the presidential election, thank goodness. I feel like this election has been going on for the last four years. No, I want to talk about California’s Proposition 8, Florida’s Amendment 2, and Arizona’s Proposition 102 and how much they burn my biscuits. In California, polls went back and forth with extremely slim margins, with approval generally leading, and now I read that it looks like it will pass. In Florida and Arizona, it’s a done deal.

That just makes me so sad…sad for the people who recently got married, sad for all the couples that were shut out of the institution of marriage, and sad for the people in my own circle of friends who were planning on getting engaged soon.

While we’re on the subject of “gay marriage,” let me offer up some better ways to protect the so-called sanctity of marriage.

• Work to reduce the number of divorces if you think divorce is bad. Last I checked, us straights are doing waaaaay more to destroy the institution of marriage than the gays ever will. You don’t have to sit idly by. The Beard and I did secular pre-marriage counseling and found it to be an eye-opening experience.
• Teach children that there’s nothing dirty or gross or weird about two people in love, no matter what is in their pants. I think kids know this instinctively, but they learn the opposite as they grow up. Then they’ll spend less time worrying about other people’s marriages and more time thinking about their own.
• There’s still a stigma surrounding marriage counseling — make it normal. Thirty years ago, if you said you were in therapy, people would be shocked. Now everyone and their mother sees a shrink. Let’s bring marriage counseling into the mainstream.
• Finally, civil marriages for all (thanks for the clarification, serenitynow78!). You want to get married in your traditional church? Do it — I myself was married by my family pastor. Just do it after you’ve gone down to city hall and gotten your contractual civil marriage approved by the state. For better or for worse, private institutions can choose who they will marry. The state, however, should not be allowed to discriminate.

I mean, seriously, are couples like the late Del Martin and her wife Phyllis Lyon (above) who were together for FIFTY-EIGHT long years really going to “destroy” marriage? How, exactly? Am I going to be so tempted by the lure of lovely lesbians that I will immediately run out and marry a chick because it’s legal? Will my adamantly straight father magically become gay because homosexuals are granted the right to marry?

Somehow, no one opposed to letting gays get married has ever been able to give me a logical reason why letting them do so will set us on the road to ruin. Odd, that.