婚姻長久的秘密，就是不離婚

While away at a conference in Minneapolis, I was awakened at dawn by a call from my husband in our New York apartment. Our 8-year-old son had just roused him with the suspicion that they might not make their 7:30 a.m. flight to join me because it was now 7:40 and they were still at home.

我在明尼阿波利斯開會時，有一天清晨被丈夫從我們在紐約的公寓里打來的電話吵醒。八歲的兒子剛叫醒他，擔(dān)心他們趕不上7點半來我這里的飛機了，因為當(dāng)時已經(jīng)7點40了，可他們還在家里。

The original plan had us all traveling to Minneapolis together. I would attend my conference, my musician husband would do a show at this cool club, and our son would get hotel pool time: a triple win.

最初的計劃是我們一起去明尼阿波利斯。我去開會，我的音樂人丈夫到一個很酷的俱樂部表演，兒子在酒店泳池里玩耍：一個三贏的決定。

Then my husband was offered a great gig in New York for the same day we were set to leave, so he called to change his and our son’s tickets. Changing them, he learned, was going to cost more than buying a new pair of one-way tickets out. So he did that instead, planning to use their original return tickets, not realizing that if you don’t use the first leg, they cancel the second. That meant buying new return tickets at a cost somewhere between “Ugh” and “What have you done?”

之后，我丈夫在紐約得到一個很棒的現(xiàn)場演出的機會，時間就在我們計劃出發(fā)的那天，所以他打電話去改簽他和兒子的機票。他得知，改簽機票比重新買兩張單程機票還貴。所以，他重新買了兩張單程機票，計劃使用他們原來的回程票。但他沒有意識到，如果你不用去程機票的話，他們就會取消返程機票。那意味著，買兩張新返程機票的價格會讓你產(chǎn)生的反應(yīng)介于“啊”和“你到底干了些什么?!”之間。

Now, after all that, my family had missed the first leg of the new itinerary. On hold with the airline yet again, my husband was texting me sexy emojis.

現(xiàn)在，經(jīng)過這一番折騰，我的家人錯過了新行程的第一步。在和航空公司再次協(xié)商的過程中，丈夫給我發(fā)了一些性感的表情符號。

“Focus,” I replied, with an emoji of an airplane.

我回復(fù)說“集中注意力”，配了一張飛機的表情符號。

He sent me an emoji of a flan.

他給我發(fā)了一張果餡餅的表情符號。

 

He and I married young for our urban friend group — in our late 20s — and now, in our late 30s, we find ourselves attending the weddings of peers. My husband of 11 years and I sit at these weddings listening to our in-thrall friends describe all the ways in which they will excel at being married.

在我們的城市朋友圈里，我們倆算結(jié)婚早的，快30歲時結(jié)的婚。如今，我們快40歲了，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己經(jīng)常參加同齡人的婚禮。我和結(jié)婚11年的丈夫坐在這些婚禮上，聽著興奮的朋友們承諾自己結(jié)婚后會在方方面面做得很好。

“I will always be your best friend,” they say, reading from wrinkled pieces of paper held in shaking hands. “I will never let you down.”

“我將永遠是你最好的朋友，”他們顫抖著雙手，拿著幾張皺巴巴的紙，照著紙上的文字念道，“我永遠不會讓你失望。”

I clap along with everyone else; I love weddings. Still, there is so much I want to say.

我和其他所有人一樣鼓掌。我喜歡婚禮。不過，我有很多話想說。

 

 

I want to say that one day you and your husband will fight about missed flights, and you’ll find yourself wistful for the days when you had to pay for only your own mistakes. I want to say that at various points in your marriage, may it last forever, you will look at this person and feel only rage. You will gaze at this man you once adored and think, “It sure would be nice to have this whole place to myself.”

我想說，有一天，你和丈夫會因為沒趕上飛機而吵架，你會懷念只用為自己的錯誤付出代價的日子。我想說，在你們婚姻(希望它能天長地久)的很多個時刻，你會看著對方，心里只有憤怒。你會盯著這個你曾經(jīng)愛慕的男人心想：“這個地方要是只有我一個人該多好。”

In Zen Buddhism, meditation helps practitioners detach from the cycle of desire and suffering. In my brief stint as a religious studies major, I preferred Pure Land Buddhism, an alternate path to enlightenment for people who (as one professor told us) may find it difficult to abandon worldly pain and passion because those things can also yield such beauty and comfort. He summed it up as: “Life is suffering — and yet.”

禪宗佛教認為，冥思能幫助修行者擺脫欲望和苦難的輪回。在我短暫的研究宗教的時期，我更喜歡凈土宗，它提供另一種開悟方法，(一位教授告訴我們)適合那些很難拋棄世俗痛苦和激情的人，因為那些東西也能產(chǎn)生美和安慰。他總結(jié)說：“人生即苦難——不過……”

I think about that all the time: “And yet.” Such hedging, to me, is good religion and also the key to a successful marriage. In the course of being together forever, you come across so many “and yets,” only some of them involving domestic air travel.

我經(jīng)常想起“不過”這個詞。在我看來，這樣的左右思量就是很好的宗教信仰，也是婚姻成功的關(guān)鍵。在長相廝守的過程中，你會碰到無數(shù)次“不過”，只有一部分涉及沒趕上國內(nèi)航班。

I love this person, and yet she’s such a mess. And yet when I’m sick, he’s not very nurturing. And yet we don’t want the same number of children. And yet I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be single again.

我很愛這個人，不過，她過得一團糟。不過，我生病的時候，他不是很會照顧我。不過，我們想要的孩子個數(shù)不一樣。不過，有時我想知道回到單身狀態(tài)會是什么樣。

The longer you are with someone, the more big and little “and yets” rack up. You love this person. Of course you plan to be with him or her forever. And yet forever can begin to seem like a long time. Breaking up and starting fresh, which everyone around you seems to be doing, can begin to look like a wonderful and altogether logical proposition.

你和某個人在一起的時間越長，會有越多大大小小的“不過”積累起來。你很愛這個人。你當(dāng)然打算與其長相廝守。不過，有時永遠會顯得很漫長。分手然后重新開始似乎是個很好、很合理的提議——你周圍的人似乎都在這樣做。

But “and yet” works the other way, too. Even during the darkest moments of my own marriage, I have had these nagging exceptions. And yet, we still make each other laugh. And yet, he is still my person. And yet, I still love him.

但是，“不過”也能起到相反的作用。甚至在我婚姻最黑暗的時刻，我也曾這樣糾結(jié)地思考事情的另一面。不過，我們?nèi)阅芰顚Ψ酱笮?。不過，他仍是我的人。不過，我還愛他。

 

And so you don’t break up, and you outlast some more of your friends’ marriages.

所以，只要你們不分手，你們的婚姻就會比更多朋友的長久。

“The way to stay married,” my mother says, “is not to get divorced.”

“婚姻長久的秘訣，”我媽媽說，“就是不要離婚。”

“My parents were too poor to get divorced,” a friend told me that very day in Minneapolis as we walked through the book fair. “And so they stayed married and then it seemed too late, and now they’re glad.”

“當(dāng)時我爸媽太窮了，離不起婚，”在明尼阿波利斯得知丈夫錯過飛機那天，一位朋友和我一起走過書展時說，“所以就沒離，等能離婚時，好像又太晚了，現(xiàn)在他們過得很愉快。”

Those are the things I think about when yet another person I used to think of as being part of a happily married couple messages a friend of mine on Tinder.

我正在想這些事情時，發(fā)現(xiàn)另一個我過去認為婚姻幸福的人在Tinder上給我的一個朋友發(fā)了條消息。

Later that morning, while waiting to hear from my husband about the flights, I decided to kill time looking at houses on Trulia’s “Near Me.” When I used to travel alone as a teenager, I would stare at houses wherever I was and imagine what it would be like to live there. Now I still do that, but I can also call up Trulia on my phone and see how much they cost.

那天早上晚些時候，在等丈夫告訴我航班的最新消息時，我決定用Trulia的“附近”功能看看房子，以消磨時間。我十幾歲獨自旅行時，不管走到哪兒，都喜歡盯著房子看，想象著自己住在里面的情景?，F(xiàn)在，我還喜歡這么做，不過我能通過手機上的Trulia查查它們值多少錢。

Comparing houses in Minneapolis, I found I actually preferred the cheaper, more ramshackle, family-friendly ones, like a two-bedroom that had “classic old world charm.” Hardwood floors! A built-in buffet! So much better, really, than the pricier one-bedroom I would live in as a single person on the other side of Powderhorn Park, with its new ceiling fans, three cedar closets and breakfast nook.

在明尼阿波利斯比較房子時，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己實際上更喜歡比較便宜、破舊的適合一家人住的房子，比如一幢具有“經(jīng)典復(fù)古韻味”的兩居室房子。實木地板!嵌入式碗柜!比起我要是單身的話會在保德霍恩公園(Powderhorn Park)另一側(cè)購買的更貴的一居室，這個真的要好得多。那個一居室新裝了吊扇，有三個杉木衣櫥和早餐座。

What would I even do with three cedar closets?

我要那三個衣櫥干什么?

Meanwhile, still no word from my husband about the flights.

其間，丈夫仍沒發(fā)來航班的消息。

One thing I love about marriage (and I love a lot of things about marriage) is that you can have a bad day or even a bad few years, full of doubt and fights and confusion and storming out of the house. But as long as you don’t get divorced, you are no less married than couples who never have a hint of trouble (I am told such people exist).

我喜歡婚姻的一點(我喜歡婚姻的很多方面)是，你可能有一天甚至好幾年都過得不開心，充滿疑慮、爭吵、困惑，甚至摔門而去。但是只要你不離婚，你和那些沒有一點矛盾的夫妻(我聽說這樣的夫妻真的存在)一樣，都是處于婚姻狀態(tài)。

You can be bad at a religion and still be 100 percent that religion. Just because you take the Lord’s name in vain doesn’t make you suddenly a non-Christian. You can be a sinner. In fact, I think it’s good theology that no matter how hard you try, you are sure to be a sinner, just as you are sure to be lousy, at least sometimes, at being married. There is perfection only in death.

你可能沒有履行一種宗教的教義，但仍完全是那個宗教的教徒。僅僅因為你妄稱上帝之名，并不代表你突然之間不是基督徒了。你可能是罪人。實際上，我認為下面這條真是很好的神論——不管你多努力，你都一定是罪人，就像你一定不擅長婚姻一樣(至少在某些時候)。只有死亡是完美的。

 

It is easy for people who have never tried to do anything as strange and difficult as being married to say marriage doesn’t matter, or to condemn those who fail at it, or to mock those who even try. But there is so much beauty in the trying, and in the failing, and in the trying again. Peter renounced Jesus three times before the cock crowed. And yet, he was the rock upon whom Christ built his church.

對那些從未嘗試過婚姻這種奇怪而困難的事情的人來說，他們很容易講婚姻無所謂，或者指責(zé)那些婚姻失敗的人，或者嘲笑那些嘗試婚姻生活的人。但是在這嘗試、失敗、再嘗試之中有很多美好。雞鳴之前，彼得三次不認耶穌。但是，彼得是耶穌基督創(chuàng)建教堂的基石。

At weddings, I do not contradict my beaming newlywed friends when they talk about how they will gracefully succeed where nearly everyone in human history has floundered. I only wish I could tell them they will suffer occasionally in this marriage — and not only sitcom-grade squabbles, but possibly even dark-night-of-the-soul despair.

在婚禮上，當(dāng)喜氣洋洋的新婚朋友們談?wù)撟约簩嗝磧?yōu)雅地成功經(jīng)營婚姻(盡管人類歷史上幾乎所有人都是在婚姻中艱難掙扎)時，我不會反駁他們。我只是希望自己能告訴他們，在婚姻中，他們會偶爾受折磨，不只是情景喜劇級別的小吵小鬧，而可能是痛徹心扉的絕望。

That doesn’t mean they are doomed to divorce, just that it’s unlikely they will be each other’s best friend every single minute forever. And that while it’s good to aim high, it’s quite probable they will let each other down many times in ways both petty and profound that in this blissful moment they can’t even fathom.

我的意思不是說他們注定會離婚，只不過他們不可能每一分鐘都是對方最好的朋友。雖然把目標(biāo)定得高點是好事，但他們很可能會讓對方或深或淺地失望很多次，這是他們在這充滿喜悅的時刻不能理解的。

But I would go on to say (had I not by that point been thrown out of the banquet hall): Epic failure is part of being human, and it’s definitely part of being married. It’s part of what being alive means, occasionally screwing up in expensive ways. And that’s part of what marriage means, sometimes hating this other person but staying together because you promised you would. And then, days or weeks later, waking up and loving him again, loving him still.

但我會接著說(如果我還沒被從宴會廳轟出去的話)：漫長的失敗是做人的一部分，無疑也是婚姻的一部分。它是活著的一部分，偶爾代價慘重。它也是婚姻意義的一部分，有時你恨對方，但你們還會在一起，因為你已做出承諾。幾天或幾周后，你早上醒來，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己又重新愛上他，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己依然愛著他。

Finally, nearly two hours after my husband’s original flight left, I texted him to ask if he was still on hold.

在丈夫最初的航班起飛近兩個小時后，我發(fā)短信問他辦好了沒有。

“We just got in a cab,” he replied. “Flying Air Wisconsin, baby!”

“我們剛上出租車，”他回復(fù)說，“搭乘威斯康星航空公司(Air Wisconsin)的航班，寶貝!”

“Did you have to pay for the tickets again?” I texted.

“你是不是又付了機票錢?”我發(fā)短信問。

The phone was silent. In that quiet moment, sitting in my hotel room, I found myself daydreaming about the one-bedroom apartment looking out onto Powderhorn Park. After waking up alone, I would brew some coffee, switch on one of my many ceiling fans, grab a robe from my largest cedar closet and head for my breakfast nook.

他暫時沒有回復(fù)。在那段時間里，我坐在酒店房間里，幻想著自己住在那個一居室里，眺望保德霍恩公園。早上獨自醒來后，我會煮點咖啡，打開其中一個吊扇，從最大的杉木衣櫥里拿出一件袍子，走向自己的早餐座。

“Nope,” he wrote back.

“沒有，”他回復(fù)道。

And suddenly I was back in the bigger place on the cheaper side of the park. My family was coming to join me. And I was glad.

突然之間，我又回到了公園另一側(cè)更便宜的大房子里。我的家人要來和我團聚了。我好高興。