City Love(64)

Rosanna and Sadie exchange a glance.

“You snore, Darcy,” Rosanna blurts. “We’ve been wondering how to tell you.”

“I do not snore.”

“You snore.”

“No, I don’t. You snore.”

“I think you have us confused. There was a lot of noise last night.”

“You mean from when you were snoring?”

“Simmer down, kids,” Sadie says. “Mommy wants to watch her movie.”

We watch the rest of the movie. As a sign of courtesy, I keep my commentary to a bare minimum. My feeling is that movies are a communal experience that should be shared verbally in real time. But hey, I understand that everyone might not feel the same. I wouldn’t talk over a movie in a movie theater or anything. I’m not a barbarian. But watching a movie in the privacy of your own home means you can comment on that hot sex scene as loud as you want. Oh, and PS? I don’t snore. Just FYI.

The movie ends on a disturbing note. We all take a minute to gauge our reactions as the credits roll.

“Why are affairs so common?” Sadie wonders. “Do that many people marry the wrong people?”

“People settle for less than they want because they think they’ll never find anyone better,” Rosanna says.

“Or they get married too young,” I say. “Nobody knows themselves before thirty. Your twenties are for exploring and having adventures and discovering who you are. How are you supposed to find yourself when you’re permanently attached to someone else?”

“Not permanently,” Rosanna corrects. “That’s the problem. People take marriage too lightly. They’re like, ‘If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get a divorce.’ Like it’s nothing. Marriage meant something back in the day. When our grandparents got married, that was for life. They didn’t ignore the part of the vows that says ‘till death do us part.’”

“I’m sure people really do feel like they’ll be together forever when they get married,” Sadie says. “But sometimes life gets in the way. People grow. They change in ways they can’t predict. What if you’re married and your husband got a job in Alaska? Would you leave your life behind to go with him?”

“You should go wherever your husband needs you to,” Rosanna insists. “That’s part of being married. Staying together no matter what.”


“But take what happened in the movie,” I say. “Connie was in love with Edward. You could tell they were attracted to each other. They probably had a hot sex life their first few years together. Then they had a kid. They got comfortable. Bogged down by routine. Her feelings for him changed. Not the best-friend feelings. The passion. That’s why she’s vulnerable when she meets Paul. He becomes the object of her affection. Suddenly Edward is repulsive. She doesn’t want him to touch her. Was that only because she fell in love with Paul, or would she have fallen out of love with Edward anyway?”

“Are you saying that anyone who’s been married for a long time is vulnerable to falling in love with someone else?” Rosanna asks.

“Anyone is vulnerable to falling in love with someone else, married or not. You can’t choose who you fall in love with.”

“But you can choose whether or not to open that door,” Sadie says. “When you’re married, it should be obvious that the door is closed to everyone except your husband.”

“Permanently,” Rosanna adds.

“If you married the right person,” I say. “What about people who settle? Half of all marriages end in divorce for a reason. A lot of reasons, actually. One of the biggest reasons is that people settle. They know they’re not completely happy with their relationship. But the fear of being alone or of never finding someone better for them is so powerful they convince themselves that it will work out. There’s this void in their life that can only be filled by a person they’d be happier with. But they’d rather live with that emptiness than risk never finding a more compatible person.”

“A soul mate,” Sadie says. “If you marry a soul mate, the love of your life, the man of your dreams, you will always be happy together. Maybe not completely happy every single day. We all have our good days and bad days no matter who we’re with. But if you’re lucky enough to find the total package, you will always have a solid relationship. It’s not even about luck. People who visualize the kind of love they want and refuse to settle for anything less will find what they’re looking for.”

“Agreed,” Rosanna says. “You can’t break up a happy relationship.”

“And the only way to have a happy relationship is to be completely open,” Sadie says.

“About everything?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Even negative things?”

Sadie pauses. “I guess it depends on how important they are.”

“Boom!” I sit up on the couch in a burst of second wind. “Here comes the conflict. What one person thinks isn’t important could be huge to the other person. So if one person’s not telling the other person something and the other person finds out and they’re all, ‘Why didn’t you tell me such and so?’ and the first person’s like, ‘I didn’t think it was important,’ that’s not going to fly. It’s going to come off like they were trying to hide something.”