The Weight of Marriage

Bex O’Brian

Word Count 308

When my father saw me moments before I wed my first husband, he asked if I intended to walk down the aisle in my underwear. I thought my Laura Ashley cotton bustier, white cotton shorts, and cotton jacket struck a jaunty tone. My mother had already instructed me that under no circumstances should I take the jacket off. “Your upper arms.” she had said, raising her eyebrows while slowly shaking her head.

I didn’t know how I would feel after getting married. But at 22 what I wanted above all was to feel something other than what I had been feeling. It’s just a piece of paper, never rang true to me. I was right, marriage is a physical thing.

My now second husband and I had been living together for seventeen years, when I pressed hard for marriage. I wanted, I said, for him to understand just how different being married was. Finally, he acquiesced.  I was so caught up in preparing the food for the wedding  that I gave no thought to what I was going to wear until the day before. The only expensive thing I had was a Giorgio Armani jacket that my youngest sister had bought for my mother. It was beige with a Mandarin collar. I wore it but didn’t feel particularly special in it.

After the wedding, my husband and I decided to spend the next year in London. We never fought so much. I think it was because he kept saying he didn’t feel any different. Next year, we will celebrate twenty years of marriage. Recently, he turned to me and said,  “I understand now, marriage does feel like a physical weight.” I have yet to screw up the courage to ask if that’s a good thing.

Bex is the author of the novels (Under Bex Brian) Promiscuous Unbound and Radius, also available here.