My grandmother once told me that growing up, she and her friends read dime romances because they knew that they were not real life. The idea that romantic love was the solution to all your problems was considered a child’s way of looking at life. She thought that during my parents generation, the desire to have your children live a better life than you started adults from hiding problems from their children. The ideal of Mayberry and the Kennedy’s Camelot started to seem more real, and since children didn’t see as much of the real struggles in their parents marriage, “bad marriages” started to be something that happened to other people.

My grandmother was an adult convert, and she thought that the romantic ideals and denial of problems in a marriage, to children but also to the rest of the world, was reinforced even more for young people who were focused on Temple marriages as the formula for eternal happiness. The assumption being that an eternally happy marriage would certainly be happy during this life.

When we turned 18, she gave each grandchild several books about “real” marriages that had stayed together, but that talked about the trials and difficulties that are part of any marriage. I remember talking to her after I read them. She was very open about the fact that she and my grandfather had fights, separated for several months at one point, and went for several years without being intimate or going to the temple together.

She wasn’t trying to be salacious, she just wanted us to know what had happened, and what does happen, even in first marriages where there is never a divorce. One of her biggest regrets was not giving that information to her children, and encouraging the Mormon “Eternal Marriage” fairy tale. She was always supportive of our marriages and she was wonderful about listening to our struggles and trials, without being judgmental. She certainly did not think that divorce was a first choice, but she supported my mother when my mom was divorcing her son. I asked her about it one time, and her basic answer was, “Marriage is hard and divorce is hard. If a marriage gets to the point where there is no love or joy, and you are happiest away from that person, then you probably don’t belong in a marriage together. If you are frustrated or angry most of the time, but still find moments of joy and love in your heart, you still need to fight for your marriage and the person you love.”

It will be interesting to see just how much Linda and Henry go through, and how, or if, they fight for their marriage and each other.

(Sorry Ardis, sometimes I just can’t be brief. Sigh)