“Jennifer. There’s an egg in that picture.”
I know, I know. Bear with me. It’ll be explained soon, I promise.
I have been married for 11 1/2 years. I am in no way an expert, I don’t have it all figured out, but I am happy and I love my husband more today than I did 11 1/2 years ago when we began our journey into happily ever after. Cinderella dancing with her prince was our cake topper, we handed out glass slippers filled with candy, and played “So This is Love” at the wedding – when I say we were beginning our happily every after, I mean it. I grew up, like many of you, on Disney movies, love stories, princesses being swept off their feet by the handsome princes, romance, beauty, and musicals that always ended with the perfect couple living happily ever after. Also like many of you, I grew into an adult who had to face the harsh reality that there’s a lot of stuff not shown in those favorite classics. Whose castle did Aurora and Philip move into? What about their controlling parents? Did Cinderella have extreme PMS? Did Aladdin ever deal with insecurity over Jasmine bringing home more money than him? Did Snow White have some pretty gnarly morning breath after she woke up? Did any of them gain weight? Struggle with infertility? Have to squash an uprising in the kingdom? Were they separated by war? Really, what ACTUALLY happened after “happily ever after” scrolled across the screen?
A lot of you are married. You’ve begun your own happily ever after. You’ve faced the reality that you couldn’t anticipate – the arguments, the bills, the little nuances and quirks that grow ten times in size when you live with someone. You’ve had in-laws get into your business. Some of you have had strangers get into your bed. You’ve found yourself in the trenches and have begun to think of marriage as a warzone more than a fairy tale. Marriage is work, that’s for sure. It’s not a secret that a relationship requires communication, compromise, and naps. The further you get from the day you began living happily ever after, the less you think “happily ever after” is even real.
Here’s where the egg comes in.
One of the summations of Gestalt Theory of psychology is by Kurt Kaffka, who said, “The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” Often it is quoted as “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Either way, here’s what it means – the pieces of something are not what it is. If you take an egg and crack it open, you have a yolk, an egg white, and an egg shell, all sitting before you. Totaled up, the sum of the parts are an egg. Yet the pieces of an egg are not the same as holding an intact egg in your hand. The egg you hold in your hand and the egg pieces that lay before you are, actually, two different things. It seems sketchy until you need an egg to bake with, then you realize the difference. While what makes up the egg before you is all present, it is not the same – nor does it have the same worth – as the egg as a whole. The whole (the intact egg) is other (different) than the sum of its parts (the broken egg, shell, yolk, and egg white). Here’s how it applies here:
Marriage is the whole. Happily ever after is the whole. Unemployment, cancer, foreclosure, infidelity, bankruptcy, deployment, infertility, boredom, selfishness, kids with special needs, surgery, depression, hormones, toilet seats, dirty dishes, addiction, fatigue…. those are parts. Whatever you have faced together in your marriage, those are the parts of it. They are not the whole. Marriage that faces the strain of miscarriage is not exempt from happily ever after. Marriage that bends under the weight of financial ruin is not prohibited from happily ever after. Marriage is much, much more than the sum of the parts. Marriage has mountains to climb, but it also has beautiful views from the top. Marriage has hand holding on the couch, Netflix binges, laughing over dinner, inside jokes, snuggles, cuddles, tickles. It has memories of who you were when you met and memories you’ve made together since. Marriage is a promise, not a circumstance. Marriage, as a whole, is greater than the argument you’re having now. Happily ever after is the whole, it’s the combination of the laughs and memories and kisses and fights and resentments and bills and exhaustion, and knowing that beyond this moment, beyond this hard, hard time you’re facing, you still love your spouse. Yes, they’re a butthead in the moment. Yes, living in a small apartment while pinning ideas for a large home is hard in the moment. Yes, not seeing your plans come to pass is crushing in the moment. But beyond this moment, you love your spouse. Beyond the pain, on the other side of it, you love them and they love you. That’s the whole. That’s the happily ever after. It’s not letting a day, a month, a season define your marriage because it’s only a day, only a month, only a season.
Not once was I shown debt-free ever after. I’ve never heard of a princess who lived healthy ever after, employed ever after, fertile ever after. What we wanted was happily ever after, and at the end of the day, when observing the whole, that’s exactly what I have.
I know, I know. There are some who will look at me and say, “Oh, Jen, you young whippersnapper, 11 1/2 years is nothing.” Some will say, “Wow, Jen must be pretty old to have already been married for 11 1/2 years.” Guess what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t live “comparatively ever after”. I’m not concerned about living “happier than…” ever after. It’s my husband and I, just us, and our happily ever after isn’t determined by the happiness going on around us. We’re not happier because we’re not facing what someone else is, and we’re not unhappy because someone else is having an easier time. Our marriage, between us, is about happily ever after, every day. We’re not in a contest, we’re in a covenant. And we are proud of our 11 1/2 years, we’re excited by them. We can smile and laugh and celebrate not because we haven’t faced some hard times. We’re not rich. We’re not famous. I don’t weigh what I did on our wedding day. We’ve walked through some dark valleys and some hot fires, and I’m not so naïve as to think they’re all behind us. But I know I’m not alone. I know that whatever has happened and whatever awaits is not the whole of my marriage. I know that a chapter isn’t the whole story and the pieces are not the same as the whole. And I know that deep in the mud, covered in tears, with hurt feelings and disappointments and insecurities abounding, I will still be in love with him, he will still be in love with me, and the whole of us is greater than that momentary piece.
So I encourage you, friends, take a step back and observe the whole. Don’t hold on to pieces and call them the sum of your marriage. Don’t think that because you’re unhappy right now you won’t ever be happy again. Don’t get caught up in the idea that it being difficult means it’s not right. Don’t misunderstand and believe that happily ever after means happily every day after. It means ever after, in a continuing line, you can observe the journey and see, as a whole, that it is a happy one. Your very own, very real happily ever after.
