So I Married an Axe Murderer...

The following is just a short jotting down of ideas on marriage that are floating around in my head...

Marriage is such a funny thing and often leaves individuals wondering just what they were thinking while tying the knot, as hindsight proves they were out of their fucking minds to do so. Every married person has at least one story that clearly illustrates his or her poor choice of a significant other, a story that highlights the insanity, laziness, irresponsibility, addictive personality, or plain cruelness of the said partner. In each story, the reflecting half always finds a point, typically the climax, that exactly defines a flaw in the partner that went undetected or ignored before the lawful union, and it is that flaw combined with experience that makes the reflector wonder whether the relationship is really worth continuing.

A man I am acquainted with is counted among those contemplating the advantages of marriage. For privacy’s sake, I will not use his real name, and instead refer to him as “Marcus.” Around forty-five years old, Marcus does extremely physical outside work that often calls for overtime on a daily basis. His wife is about fifty-years-old but is disabled due to a back injury that requires a morphine drip to control the pain, and it is the medication that makes her look fifteen years older for it yellowed her skin due to long-term use. Marcus, who affectionately calls his wife “Looney Toons,” met her while enlisted in the Navy; they didn’t date very long before tying the knot, one of his biggest self-proclaimed life mistakes. Looney Toons began making suicide threats only three months into the marriage whenever she did not get her way, and took money fraud lessons from her youngest son, who eventually landed in jail. She racked up fifty-thousand dollars in credit card debt, and since all of the accounts were in both partner’s names, Marcus was forced to declare bankruptcy. All of those shenanigans were manageable, he thought, until Looney Toons’ erratic behavior turned against him.

One particular night, not long after falling asleep, Marcus had an odd feeling that someone was watching over him, and awoke with a start. His wife was leaning over his body with a butcher knife in hand, making silent mechanical stab motions through the air, aiming at Marcus’ heart. When she saw his eyes pop open, she calmly placed the knife on her nightstand, rolled over, and proceeded to fall asleep, leaving her husband wide-awake for the remainder of the nighttime sleeping hours. Marcus did not know what to think of the scene that played before his eyes, but he knew that given the right frame of mind Looney Toons would have no remorse in killing him, though he had more than one objection to playing a role in her murder fantasy.

On another late night excursion, Looney Toons woke her husband up just to pick an argument with his groggy senses. As Marcus became aware of his surroundings, the fight became heated; the couple moved from the bedroom to the living room, where Looney Toons, yelling at the top of her lungs, pushed Marcus out the front door and into the yard, then closed it in his face and locked it back. In his boxer shorts only, Marcus stood exposed to the thirty-degree temperature staple of a December night in North Florida. A few minutes later, he heard the back door slam shut and foot steps moving across the cold grass until they reached the garage. Walking around the house in attempts to discover his wife’s next move, Marcus was put off guard by the sudden opening of the garage door, which revealed his wife revving up her car before throwing it into drive and maneuvering it in his direction. Barefoot, Marcus ran around the three-acre perimeter of his property with his wife hot on his tail and itching to run him over.

Years later, Marcus got up enough nerve to leave his wife and proceeded to seek the advice of a divorce lawyer, when Looney Toons finally made good on all the suicide threats she made over the years by swallowing bottle after bottle of prescription pills. The attempt was foiled when Looney Toons decided she did not really want to die, calling 9-1-1 instead for medical aid. Scared that she would try again, Marcus returned home to his wife, who he vowed to leave only once death separates them. To this day, he despises Looney Toons and constantly wishes her dead.

His is not the only marriage of constant turmoil, quite naturally, but his story is similar in nature as to the ease in which marriages turn sour and leaves one or both partners dissatisfied and unhappy. Neither state is worth spending one’s life, which is why so many couples turn to divorce these days. Marriages hardly begin that way, though—instead, they usually start out filled with love and joy but as partners change with time, they find that they have grown apart. When a married person discovers he (or she) cannot stand the spouse he promised to cherish forever, that is when the love ought to be abandoned before annoyance transforms into life-long bitter hatred.

(Speaking of bitter hatred reminds me of my parent's marriage, which is just too complicated to condense into a short essay.)