Hell is other people: On the meaning of marriage

I am currently taking a class in qualitative methods for  research. We are doing a study on graduate students’ conceptions of marriage.  I have interviewed two people and spent time formulating my own answers to the same interview questions. I have taken this data and constructed a poetic response to the interviews. It is mostly tongue and cheek, but I think there is something to the sarcasm. These are my interpretations of the data. I don’t make any claims to the objectivity of the statements.

Hell is other people:

If you ask what makes a good marriage?
The obvious answers come first:

Communication.
Respect.
Selflessness.

We want to keep things simple.

Distill profound essences
into single words.

But these words mean
different things for
different People.

And the reality is:

There is no such thing
as a “good marriage”.
They say divorce
is up to 50%.

All this talk
of eternal love,
devotion and
till death do us part

is over-shadowed
by the cold numerology
of coin flips
and dice rolls.

Do you feel lucky?

So let’s keep it simple:
It’s always the little things,
in the end, that break us down.

Tooth paste not rolled from the bottom of the tube.

Dishes not cleaned after a night’s meal.

He didn’t put his shoes in the closet and left them out in the hallway.
One shoe by the door,
the other by the bathroom.
He’s so disorganized.

She spends to long getting ready in the morning and he’s always late for work.
He hates being late.

He keeps forgetting she doesn’t like cream in her coffee.
And she complains about it
even when he tries to be nice
and surprise her with a cup and pastry at work.

She finds the way he chews his food disgusting and barbaric.
He hates how long it takes her to peck through her food.

He doesn’t fold his clothes the way she learned from her mother.
He likes to bundle his socks in the drawer
without matching them to a pair.

He leaves toilette seats up
and doesn’t clean the urine dribbles
left on the floor.
“It’s just urine,” he says.

She spends too long deciding between
a blue blouse
or a green blouse
and often wonders aloud
“am I too fat”
or “does this make my complexion run?”
When he doesn’t care,
he likes her the way she is.
And both blouses look good on her.
She rolls her eyes when he says,
“yes baby buy the green one, it looks nice.”
But can’t give a reason why “it’s nice”.

She doesn’t like to cook
but she doesn’t like the food he makes either.

He reads too much,
she sleeps too much,
he drinks too much,
she smokes too much,
he likes to play video games,
she likes to watch the Home and Garden network,
he’s  a cat person,
she’s a dog person,
he’s into slasher flicks,
she’s into chick flicks,
he hates going to church,
she’s there every Sunday,
he forgets to take out the trash,
she forgets to throw away her nails when she cuts them,
he forgets to let the dog out,
she forgets to feed the cat,
he hates folding laundry,
she hates washing clothes,
she only eats free-trade chocolate,
he’ll eat whatever is cheapest,
she likes red wine,
he likes white wine.

He never uses lip balm, his lips are always chapped.
She uses it too much and her lips always taste like medication.

He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he works,
she likes to talk while she works.

He likes rainy day,
she likes sunny days.

He likes.
She likes.
He wants.
She wants.

The list could go on and on.

It’s really not about communication,
or respect
or selflessness.

These behaviors are buried deep.
Years and years of psychological baggage and conditioning.

But mostly, it comes down to the tooth paste.

He doesn’t put the cap back on
and the fluoride dries and encrusts the nozzle
and that just disgusts
the living hell
out of her.