2 Decades Of Marriage Quotes

All I mean is that, hypothetically, why would we need to see anyone else? And as long as we're going out and happy, wouldn't marriage be the goal, even if it's a decade away? ’Cause if it's not, all this is pointless.

In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it. Elections are about a lot of things, but at the highest level, they’re about money. The people who sponsor election campaigns, who pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the candidates’ charter jets and TV ads and 25-piece marching bands, those people have concrete needs. They want tax breaks, federal contracts, regulatory relief, cheap financing, free security for shipping lanes, antitrust waivers and dozens of other things. They mostly don’t care about abortion or gay marriage or school vouchers or any of the social issues the rest of us spend our time arguing about. It’s about money for them, and as far as that goes, the CEO class has had a brilliantly winning electoral strategy for a generation. They donate heavily to both parties, essentially hiring two different sets of politicians to market their needs to the population. The Republicans give them everything that they want, while the Democrats only give them mostly everything. They get everything from the Republicans because you don’t have to make a single concession to a Republican voter. All you have to do to secure a Republican vote is show lots of pictures of gay people kissing or black kids with their pants pulled down or Mexican babies at an emergency room. Then you push forward some dingbat like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin to reassure everyone that the Republican Party knows who the real Americans are. Call it the “Rove 1-2.” That’s literally all it’s taken to secure decades of Republican votes, a few patriotic words and a little over-the-pants rubbing. Policywise, a typical Republican voter never even asks a politician to go to second base. While we always got free trade agreements and wars and bailouts and mass deregulation of industry and lots of other stuff the donors definitely wanted, we didn’t get Roe v. Wade overturned or prayer in schools or balanced budgets or censorship of movies and video games or any of a dozen other things Republican voters said they wanted.

Ian and Rob remained standing. “What did Dougal want?” Ian asked. “Our Lina’s hand, that’s what.” Andrew crossed his arms against his chest. Ian stared at him, resisting an urge to grind his teeth. “In marriage?” Rob asked. “Aye, sure, in marriage,” Andrew said, his thick, dark eyebrows knitting together. “The knave dared to tell me that such a marriage would reunite Clan Farlan. Then he had the gall to ask if I didna want such an end to the trouble and strife of the past two decades. Come to that, I expect it might serve such an end.” Ian felt as if the Fates had kicked the wind out of him. But he gathered enough air to say, “You didn’t . . . that is, you couldn’t have agreed to that.” Rob’s eyebrows shot up then, and Ian’s peripheral vision caught that rare sign of surprise in his friend.

Some Black Americans who were accused of crimes during the Jim Crow era were thrown into work camps while in prison. There they labored decades after slavery had been abolished. People in convict work camps in Atlanta are known to have helped construct buildings that still exist today, like the federal penitentiary and homes in the upscale neighborhood Inman Park. That legacy in Atlanta is tied to a former mayor from the 1880s, James W. English. He owned the Chattahoochee Brick factory, among other businesses, and according to a book by the journalist Douglas Blackmon, English’s companies managed 1,206 of Georgia’s 2,881 convict laborers, who made bricks, among other manual jobs. English’s “great personal wealth was inextricably linked to the enslavement of thousands of men” decades after slavery had been outlawed, Blackmon wrote. In addition to the convict-staffed brick factory, English owned a bank that merged into Wachovia, which is now part of Wells Fargo. From these businesses, his descendants had money and opportunities to build more wealth: a great-grandson, James D. Robinson III, went on to serve for twenty years as the chief executive of American Express, and then he had wealth and connections to help his son, James IV, found a venture capital firm in 1994. That firm, RRE Ventures, became one of the most successful and lucrative venture capital firms in the world. Robinson III referred our question about the era of convict leasing to a relative by marriage, who told us, “It was a black mark, and history is messy.

Yes, we were married. Yes, we’d been intimate for nearly a decade combined over our two marriages. But it would never get old, knowing he found me attractive. He’d never expected me to transform myself to meet society’s standards of “beauty”. Jenner had always loved me just as I was—even when I hadn’t loved myself.

His eyes slid over Ravyn’s hands—his pockets. Ravyn knew what he was hoping to glimpse. The Nightmare Card. Only two burgundy Nightmare Cards had been forged. Both had been missing for decades. Tyrn Hawthorn had brought one forward—traded it to King Rowan at Equinox for a marriage contract between Ione and Hauth. It was no doubt still being used at Stone by the Physicians attempting to revive Hauth. Gorse wasn’t the smartest Destrier. But the distrust coloring his face meant he had come to one of two conclusions. Either Ravyn had taken the King’s Nightmare Card— Or he, Captain of the Destriers, possessed the second one. Along with a Mirror Card he’d conveniently failed to mention.

I see.” A smile played on his lips. “I must do the thing properly, then. If you’ll rise?” He pressed her to her feet, then slid from the chair and dropped to one knee. He took her hand in his own roughened one. “You will not be offended by the truth?” She looked down at him, this kneeling duke, with his odd, deliberate ways. There was simply no one else like him, and she loved him for that. “I might. But I want it anyway.” He worked shaking fingers between hers, then gave a sharp nod. “Here it is. Eleven years ago, you married an old man who wanted to cheer his last years with a nubile young wife. I have no expectation of dying soon, so I am quite prepared to see you grow haggard and fat over the forthcoming decades.” A crack of laughter burst from her throat; his mouth creased in a barely suppressed smile as he added, “My finances are adequate without the aid of your fortune. And—forgive me for mentioning it—but my bloodline is more noble than yours too.” “This is hardly a litany of praise.” “It’s the truth. And so is this: that there is only one remaining reason for me to offer you marriage. I love you.” His grip about her fingers tightened. “For many years, I had no talent for using my heart, and so I never bothered with it—until you entered my life and showed me the pleasurable bits of life that I was missing. How much sweeter is work when there is someone to play with at day’s end. How a small kindness can grow to touch everyone around it. Everything is better with you near.” The walls around her heart were weak now, indeed. “I want to believe you. So much. But I know your nature is solitary. How can I be sure you won’t tire of me and toss me aside like a Carcel lamp?” “I would never toss aside a Carcel lamp.” She couldn’t help but laugh.

Chanelle was unabashedly proud of her open relationship and the many facets she explored with and without her husband. The pieces of themselves they’d learned over a decade of love lingered in each breath she took. I was already confused enough about my relationship; I didn’t need to spend the night locked in memories of Chanelle’s very adventurous marriage. There were more than a few questions I had about her relationship, but after that colorful snippet, I didn’t want answers. Chanelle was as free with her words as her thoughts. It was quite liberating to observe yet irritating to endure.

But by now, he figured, there must be thousands of men like him, rich businessmen who over the past ten or fifteen years had divorced their old wives of two to three decades’ standing and taken on new wives, girls a whole generation younger. And what did all the experts have to say about these irresistible little morsels? Nothing! What if a man goes through all that, the separation, the divorce, all that agony, that struggle, that hellish expense, that…that…. that guilt…and one day, or one night, he wakes up and wonders, Who the hell is this in the bed next to me? Why is she here? Where did she come from? What does she want? Why won’t she leave? That they don’t tell you about.

Movie stars didn’t become irrelevant, but they became very inconsistent in attracting an audience. People used to go to almost any movie with Tom Cruise in it. Between 1992 and 2006, Cruise starred in twelve films that each grossed more than $100 million domestically. He was on an unparalleled streak, with virtually no flops. But in the decade since then, five of Cruise’s nine movies—Knight and Day, Rock of Ages, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow, and The Mummy—were box-office disappointments. This was an increasingly common occurrence for A-listers. Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller couldn’t convince anyone to see Zoolander 2. Brad Pitt didn’t attract audiences to Allied. Virtually nobody wanted to see Sandra Bullock in Our Brand Is Crisis. It’s not that they were being replaced by a new generation of stars. Certainly Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt and Kevin Hart and Melissa McCarthy have risen in popularity in recent years, but outside of major franchises like The Hunger Games and Jurassic World, their box-office records are inconsistent as well. What happened? Audiences’ loyalties shifted. Not to other stars, but to franchises. Today, no person has the box-office track record that Cruise once did, and it’s hard to imagine that anyone will again. But Marvel Studios does. Harry Potter does. Fast & Furious does. Moviegoers looking for the consistent, predictable satisfaction they used to get from their favorite stars now turn to cinematic universes. Any movie with “Jurassic” in the title is sure to feature family-friendly adventures on an island full of dinosaurs, no matter who plays the human roles. Star vehicles are less predictable because stars themselves get older, they make idiosyncratic choices, and thanks to the tabloid media, our knowledge of their personal failings often colors how we view them onscreen (one reason for Cruise’s box-office woes has been that many women turned on him following his failed marriage to Katie Holmes).

Marriage has its phases, and after two decades and counting with Serena, I know this truth all too well. I live it and very intentionally endure it because the hard-earned sweet spots are so fucking worth it.