In high school I learned about a married couple who were swingers, by the very definition of the term. It wasn't as though I truly understood what that meant, mind you, just that it was supposed to be shocking and salacious and unconventional and not what nice, Midwestern folks did.

Ahem.

This was my first introduction to the sport commonly known as "Judging the Relationship of Others." It's easy to play, and doesn't take a lick of practice. There aren't any rules and you needn't even include the people whom you're judging into the action. All you need to do is fully subscribe to some notion of what a marriage/relationship/partnership is Supposed To Be, and any deviation therein signals the starting gun and it's off to the races!

I say "notion" for the following reasons: 1) by definition it means a person's impression of something via experience or imagination and 2) it's generally undefined. And time and time again we tend to operate under the delusion that what essentially is a personalized idea of commitment is universally accepted when it never really and truly, well, is.

What makes a marriage good? It differs from couple to couple. We pretend that it doesn't, we pretend that we all conduct our relationships as near mirror images of each other - monogamous, passionate, loving, romantic - but time and time again we know that's not true.

By all accounts this couple was, and is, happily married. It's just that what it took for them to be happily married to each other was not what it takes a seemingly majority of people to remain happily married to their partners and, no offense, in a Western culture it's tough to get our brains around arrangements that aren't simpatico with our own. We're ethnocentric that way, especially Americans. Ironic, though, that Americans are usually as guilty as any group of going against some supposed status quo, it's just that we don't talk about it or live comfortably with it for fear of being ostracized.

God forbid your marriage turns out not to be Perfect.

One of the more common utterances I heard when I announced that I'd separated from my ex-husband was how perfect we had seemed. "Perfect" in this context was centered in that we didn't fight with, or complain about, each other. Had I mentioned how we'd had sex literally a handful of times in four years or that he'd spent a majority of his weekends away with a friend of his in the suburbs, perhaps they'd have had a different opinion. Maybe if I had told them that by that point I preferred my friends company in lieu of his, or that I'd fallen in love with someone else, maybe then they would have not been so shocked. Maybe if I'd mentioned that we both felt so alone together that it was terrifying most days to come home they would have said "Well, it was about time."

But we don't share those things for good reason, and it's not just fear of being an outcast. It wasn't as though I embraced the fact that I wasn't attracted to my husband or that I cared for his company. I recognize that my situation is wholly different than the overall point I'm making. It's just that because of this need to appear perfect, we tend to make sure all of our peccadilloes are safely guarded behind closed doors, whether we're ashamed of those things or not.

We as a society want people to make marriage work, but we just don't want those things that enable it to be, say, the periodic threesome or viewing of online porn or separate bedrooms.

I should make clear that the terms in which Scott and I have defined for ourselves fall within the non-shocking end of the spectrum. Monogamy is choice, a calling, if you will, one we're committed to keeping. Some people keep kosher. We keep monogamy. Neither of us feels as though the natural pull of attraction to others is something we need to act upon, no matter how much we acknowledge that it exists. We're boring and bland, but we're very much in love and do everything together and that's pretty much how we like it.

But here is what I know: the sort of commitment as we have defined for ourselves might sound the death knell for another couple, and who am I to say that my way is the only way, much less the right way?

I say all this in light of the John Edwards revelation today, and how it's exploding everywhere (even if it will go away quickly) and how shocked people seemed to be, and how disappointed, etc., etc. I'm not saying it isn't disappointing, especially if you believe in monogamy, and even more to the point because he has a sick wife. But to me it no longer seems newsworthy or relevant that a politician has an affair, and I'm not sure it's up to us to judge him as a husband based on the revelation. We don't know the terms in which his marriage exists or what are the non-negotiables for them.

I feel for everyone involved, mostly because he was put in a position to have to own up to something he and his family purportedly put to bed a long time ago, something he and his wife decided to get through, for whatever reason, simply because we can't handle that relationships aren't what they're Supposed To Be.

Posted by Erin at 08:13 PM | filed under: Wedding, marriage, love, etc.