The truth about my marriage
"Ben and Katrin have separated," says my friend Tine and stirs in the milk coffee. They were so happy! " I am shocked. Ben and Katrin - the dream couple. Ben is one who refills the wine glass for his wife. Who does not flee the terrace at a party when the host turns up the music to dance. He listens when conversing with him, not just talking about himself. Of course sometimes I thought: If only mine
But I should know better, free after the favorite phrase of my grandmother: You just can not look. In other families, in other marriages. Because every marriage has its own truth. And sometimes not even the spouse knows: If the man goes to Anja every Tuesday and not with Tom to the squash. When the woman shines with joy, when friends praise the resemblance to her daughter, and no one asks for the green-brown eyes.
The truth of a marriage is often not visible to the outside, and it should not be. Because we want to protect ourselves and our partner. Because we often do not want to or can not acknowledge this truth ourselves. And because we have experiences with deciding reactions of others. If a friend begins to talk about problems, and the husband was previously regarded as a tolerable or even great man in the circle of friends, then comes: "We did not run so well for a while", "That will be fine again" or "That's it but really not that bad ". And the own mother can hardly resist as a comment to the daughter's marriage crisis a "Remember, you are not without".
Most of the claimants soon stop their talks because they realize that others do not want to tackle this issue. You do not want to be invited to break into the "taboo marriage". And why? Because they do not want to release their own taboo zone for viewing. Unspoken all accept this discretion distance. To break it means to admit weaknesses, to be watched by others in the eventual failure - we would like this less with relatives and colleagues than with our best friend. Also: Who likes to be there as an Anschwärzer when everyone else presents their white vests? Or at least we think that they have a white vest? Because strangely, we usually only suspect good things with the others. That is friendly from us and for many couples also justified, but still not realistic. After all, every second to third marriage is now divorced in Germany, in major cities it is already every second, in Berlin comes to a wedding a divorce. Marriages break because they have become lukewarm, careless and paralyzing. Functional small businesses in which love and passion no longer occur.
If divorcing is going on for a couple today, in 56 percent of the cases, women have filed for divorce, in 36.5 percent men, and 7.5 percent do it together. Women are making significant strides, though they know that child custody is threatening and old injuries will come up. Suffering from marriage is obviously much higher for women than for men. And they are ready to pay the price. The fact is that divorced women usually have to make do with 30 percent less income, and they know that before. By contrast, divorced men only lose 10 percent (Socioeconomic Panel from 1984 to 1999).
Nevertheless, the deregistered husband often no longer understands the world. According to a study by the University of Siegen, it is above all late-divorced men who fall from every cloud. Men who have been married for more than 25 years and confronted with the divorce request stunned ask: "Why? It's all right."
Not at all. Because the truth behind the happy facade is often called: lack of conversation and attention. Lack of tenderness and sex. Lack of respect and respect for family, home, work. Dreams that have not been fulfilled. A high-explosive depot - and the husbands often sit on the powder kegs for years without knowing it. The women usually work hard to maintain the harmonious backdrop and polish the image of their own marriage as we know it from advertisements, television movies and our pink girl dreams.
What does a woman who has a bouquet of flowers on Valentine's Day on the table and is almost jealously addressed by her best friend feel? Shall she admit that in the morning her husband put the bag with the returnable bottles to his son and said, "Bring back, and from the pledge your mother can buy flowers"? Should she tell that? Should she rather remain silent, perhaps even be pleased with the praise of her friend - after all, did she get flowers?
Truths not only burden ourselves, they can also burden our interlocutors. Because we hold the mirror up to them and confront questions that they otherwise avoid.
It can be comforting to know the truths of others. To note: I do not measure my own relationship with reality, but with a utopia, with a dream relationship that exists only in my imagination. Protecting one's life is good. But it is also good to know that even the life of the girlfriends is rarely a Hollywood movie.
