The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Gray Area

Dahlia, you ask, "Why do we want to cast our marriages in such cartoonish extremes?" I think the gray area—where a marriage is neither deliriously euphoric for years on end, nor a bastion of bitterness, infighting, and "divorce dreams"—may not be written about partly because those extremes sell better but also partly because they're easier for the writer. It's a lot harder to be realistic about the gray area. Because that gray area lets on that, heaven forbid, your marriage might not be perfect. It's as though if you acknowledge that a gray area exists, you come off looking like you're trashing marriage—your own.

The closest analogy I can think of, I hate to say, is the various plot endings of the recent Sex and the City movie (note: major spoiler alert), which focused a lot on fairy-tale endings of deliriously happy marriages (or one in particular). As much as it pained me to see Carrie marry Big in the end—not only because he'd consistently screwed her over throughout the series, but also because, after leaving her at the altar, it didn't make any sense (why not live together happily ever after if he's that freaked out by marriage?)—I was heartened to see the ending written for Miranda and Steve. Contrary to the foolish, the-bad-guy-will-change-for-you message sent by the valentine that is Carrie's marriage, Miranda and Steve seem to really struggle and really try to work it out (at the very end) after Steve's affair. Granted, the circumstances of one party cheating are much more dire than the vanilla-esque gray area items I'm mulling over (like leaving the cap off the toothpaste), but it's not too often, especially on the big screen, that you see the struggle and mediocrity of a marriage—along with the moments that endear the betrothed to each other, by the way—getting equal airing. It was a refreshing antidote to the overblown central story line, yet it hardly got any attention.

Perhaps the reality of it is just too banal and maybe, as Dahlia again pointed out, we might need to stake out outrageously simple positions to get published. But I think there could be more to it than that. (I also add that my own marriage is a bed of roses every single day. Seriously.)