T w e n t y S i d e d

I had this [semi-] joke I use to tell:

I always said it would be a cold day in hell before I got married, which is why we’re getting married on January 25 in Slippery Rock.

The little guy is my new brother-in-law. He was born the year Heather and I met.

Lots of people are down on marriage. My generation certainly wasn’t crazy about it, and the next generation is even less inclined to take the plunge. I didn’t think it made sense. I mean, half of them fail, right? And some portion of the other half are probably unhappy, right? Those odds suck, so why bother? It’s just a piece of paper. It’s so expensive. It will fail anyway. But I did it despite this cynicism, and it was one of the best decisions of my life.

You don’t often hear about people who are in happy, stable marriages. I can understand why. “They lived happily ever after” is a terrible beginning for a story. And maybe you think, as I used to, that it can’t work for you or is an outmoded idea. My advice: Marry, or don’t marry, but you shouldn’t let movie dramas inform your image of marriage any more than you should let action flicks inform your perception of driving and firearm safety.

I can’t promise you that marriage will be a happy time, or that it will work for you. And I can guarantee that it won’t make you happy all the time. But if you’re young and suspicious of the institution, I can say that it does work for some people, and the payoff is a rich life and a steady supply of self-sustaining joy.

Happy Anniversary, Heather. I won’t post the gushy stuff here on the blog, because you’d hate that. But, you know, I do.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.