Marriage Blues

Disclaimer:  I didn't actually write the following thoughts - I found them online and they described how I've been feeling so perfectly that I just tweaked it a bit and changed the names and here you have it:  an insider's look into exactly how I'm feeling at the moment.

She is my favorite person on earth, and the one who I feel is most deserving of all of the happiness that life has to offer. I couldn't wish for anything better for her.  So why now, as the big day creeps closer do I feel so strange about it?

There’s a voice in my head that I just can’t shake: this is it. This is the end of something. What you have with Marg won’t ever be the same again.

This is not about jealousy or disappointment with my own life. I’m happy, no question about it. What it is, I think, is a dread that my beautiful, brilliant friend – and our beautiful, brilliant friendship – will change when Marg becomes somebody’s wife.

It happens. Just about every friend I’ve ever had who gets married has said as much.

“Oh, I really didn’t expect it to, but it does feel so ... different.”

“Better” is what they mean. Better than before, when you were all they had. And the real knife-in-the-back implication: better than what you’re left with, you poor, unmarried creature.

So it’s not really about that. I don’t mind that Mark takes my place in the car and at get-togethers (well, I do, but a manageable amount). What stings is that he’s taken my place at the comfort table as well. When Marg has a miserable day at work, it’s Mark who hears about it.

And well he should be; he’s going to be her husband, for goodness sake. But while that makes me genuinely happy for her, it has also disturbed the careful balance of our friendship. The thing is, I used to be that person for Marg. If Mark takes over that role (and, let’s face it, it is inevitable that he will), where does that leave me?

If she doesn’t come to me with her stuff, how am I supposed to go to her with mine? She won’t need me anymore, but I’ll still need her. And that’s where the problem comes in.

So, am I losing her? Why does it feel like I am?

Like most women in possession of half a dozen brain cells, I understand that I’m not really losing my best friend to marriage. I know that the blush of being a newlywed will wear off and that she’ll soon start coming to me again. Maybe not for everything that she used to, but probably for a few new things, too.

I know that our relationship will change and make room for Mark and their eventual offspring, and all of this will be OK.

I get all of this. But I still feel weird about it. It’s like she’s moving on to some new stage in life and I’m lacking the pass to cross with her. She’ll be a wife. And with that title will come all sorts of respect and responsibility. And if she’s all that, then what am I? What if all the stuff that has bonded us until now can no longer sustain us? What if it gets swallowed up by wifedom?

Go ahead and tell me it sounds ridiculous. I know it does. But for the past 10 years, Marg and I have been the primary witnesses to each other’s lives. We’ve had other friends and our families, of course – it’s not like we’re maladjusted – but we were each other’s rocks. Now she’s got a new rock, and I’m in a hard place.

In some weird way, all of the romantic, everlasting love that Mark gives Marg trivialises what we feel for each other. Friendship is the only sort of love that has no standing in society. It doesn’t grant you access to a hospital room.  It doesn’t make missing persons appeals on TV. It’s not an emergency contact number. As far as onlookers are concerned, as “just” a friend you’re on the sidelines. And that’s just not fair. I was there first. What about us? Is “us” now less important than “them”?

And then it dawns on me: not less important, but different.

So here’s the conclusion I’ve reached: friendship, just like the rest of life, is a constantly changing thing. Although the essence of what connects you may remain the same, the relationship will continue to reinvent and remould itself.

And you can’t freeze it in time at a supposed heyday, clinging to the shards like an old woman mourning the lost beauty of her youth. You can only embrace it, love it and move with it, celebrating each metaphorical laughter line along the way.

That’s the way not to be left behind as your friend moves on. Besides, it’s not just you who’s scared.

“When I get married, will you assume I’m always busy with Mark and stop inviting me to places?”

I told her of course not, but the fact is, I don’t know. It could happen. In fact, it probably should happen.

I can only promise Marg what I’ve always promised her – that I’ll always be there for her if she needs me, that while our friendship will change as a result of external forces in our lives, it will never disappear because of them.

She may have become someone’s wife, but she’s still my best friend – and even if she and I are the only two who understand how fundamental that is...well, that’s enough.