"Never marry someone you wouldn't want to be divorced from." This advice comes from the twice divorced, now deceased, Nora Ephron in her book, I Feel Bad About My Neck. She puts it in a list of things she wished she had known. There is no other context for it. It falls between, "Buy, don't rent," and "Don't cover a couch with anything that isn't more or less beige." If you google it, you will find that it is now a popular saying. Expect to see it on coffee mugs and tote bags in the near future.
But what does it mean? I take it to mean that you should be careful of the temper of the person you marry. If the person is the type who is fine when everything is going his/her way but dangerous and punishing when things are not, this person will be unbearable to live with. Then what? Your divorce will be an even deeper circle of hell than your marriage was. On the other hand, if the person is nice to you even under bad conditions, you will probably never want a divorce.
Seen this way, it is brilliant dating advice. So I mentioned it to my twenty year old daughter, Eileen. Her response? "How awful." Marry someone you'd want to divorce? Ugh.
That's when I realized that there were different ways to read it. Popular saying or not, it's not self explanatory.
Okay, what do other people think?
So I asked the other young adults in my life for their take on the quote. Is it good advice or bad? Should we get the tote bag or not?
My twenty-five year old daughter, Molly, understood it my way. "I think it means that if the person is really mean when they're angry, or they refuse to admit wrongdoing or forgive, you shouldn't marry them. If you marry someone like that, then divorce will be the worst." Then she added, "But if the person is truly kind, then if you are divorced, you can still get along for your kids' sake."
But her fiancé Frank had something of his own to add. As a convert, and coming from a divorced home, he said, "I still find it a weird point to dwell on regarding one's future spouse. Even when trying to make a positive point, this is a way we think about things! Because the circumstances of a divorce (the broken heart, wild emotions, anger, sadness, regret, etc.) are triggered by something that should never happen. Ideally, our view of marriage would be such that this would never be the terms in which we judge the character of a potential spouse!"
Who knew that ten little words could contain so much contradiction?
Ephron herself was a contradiction. Though not religious in any way, and in youth something of a bohemian, she was still graced with keen insight into the human condition, and she had the writing chops to express it. Her writing is funny, honest, and shows a spirit that longed for transcendence. She often comes close. So close. Only to turn away—deliberately—for gifted writers don't write anything by accident. For example, after a long reflection about death brought on by the loss of her best friend, she concludes that she has no answers and then goes on, "And that reminds me to say something about bath oil."
I always thought her an apt spokeswoman for the people of today's culture—a whole generation of people who have a gut feeling that that they were made a little lower than the angels but have been conditioned to behave like animals. Her writing opens a window into the hunger of those who live just for this world but know—deep down—that there is more.
Perhaps the best context for Ephron's words of wisdom is another of her coffee cup sayings: "Marriages come and go but divorce is forever." Funny as she is, there is a sad distrust beneath her words. As Frank pointed out, marriage is framed in the context of a possible break-up.
"Much better," said Frank, "to marry someone with whom divorce is not possible." Since he's about to marry my daughter, I couldn't agree more.
I may even get it printed on a tote bag.
Find Your Forever.
CatholicMatch is the largest and most trusted
Catholic dating site in the world.
Continue Reading
