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In 2022, New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren decried a culture of divorcing for unhappiness, writing, “I want to normalize significant periods of confusion, exhaustion, grief and unfulfillment in marriage. There’s an older couple I know who are in their fifth decade of marriage. They are funny and kind and, by almost any standard, the picture of #relationshipgoals. Early on in our marriage they told us, ‘There are times in marriage when the Bible’s call to love your enemies and the call to love your spouse are the same call.’ ” Life is, of course, not easy, and no one is going to like their partner every day. But Warren’s column makes misery in marriage sound like a necessary evil of being partnered with a man. It’s not. I refuse to believe that it has to be that way. I have two dear friends who I have known for over twenty years; we fight sometimes and disagree. Between us we’ve had three divorces and four marriages and three children. Never once have they felt like the enemy to me. And if it is that way, if the experience of being with a man means I hate him for at least a third of our marriage and he hates me, too, I’d rather not have it. No, thank you. There is no benefit to that martyrdom. To me, columns like Warren’s sound like the mentality that enables hazing rituals and cults where they sacrifice one of their own every fortnight. I was miserable, so you should be, too. I do not want that curse. I want happiness.
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