A successful marriage after all?

You all know that my marriage was in many ways a slow-moving train wreck: very slow-moving, but ultimately a wreck all the same. So it has always amused me … well, "always" since I read the relevant post … that the system of numerology propounded by John Michael Greer says it should have been a success. But this evening I thought of another way to look at it.

I won't summarize my marriage, because you can just go re-read all of my posts here from December 2007 through June 2017: I mean all 932 of them. It's easy. But maybe I should recap what Greer says about the numerology of relationships.

Numerological background

His relevant blog post is this one here, from February 3, 2022. In it, he tells you how to calculate two numbers that characterize any relationship (romantic, financial, or whatever). 

• The outer number "represents the concrete, outward, practical side of the relationship.  If it’s for a marriage, for example, how will the marriage work out in purely practical terms?  Will the people involved be able to handle each other’s habits?  Will they be comfortable together?  Will they be able to work together, build a stock of shared wealth, and prosper?"
• The inner number "tells you about [the relationship's] emotional dimensions, and especially about what provides the relationship with its emotional foundation and direction."

When I calculate these numbers for me and Wife, I get that our outer number = 3, and our inner number = 9. Here's what those mean:

• "If your outer number is 3, the relationship will be successful but unstable. In a marriage or other romantic relationship, one or both partners may not be faithful; …. If you know what you’re getting into and are willing to stay flexible and adjust to the other person’s vagaries, this can work, but don’t count on happily ever after." [Emphasis added.]
• "If your inner number is 9, the relationship is founded on shared service.  In this kind of relationship the people involved need each other’s emotional support and nurturing, and the relationship thrives so long as they take care of each other." [Emphasis added.]

What is success?

At first, the characterization "successful but unstable" sounds like a joke. "Unstable"? Sure. Wife was repeatedly unfaithful, and we sure didn't get "happily ever after." But "successful"? How's that again?

But the whole concept of success is relative to a goal. "Success" always means "success at doing something in particular." So what were our goals for the marriage? What did we actually want to achieve?

I don't remember us ever sitting down to discuss the question. I know that we each had secret, unstated agendas, and those agendas didn't really overlap. But I once addressed this exact question in the general case, in a philosophic essay over on the Patio. You can find it here.

In this essay, I argue that marriage has two purposes: it is a school for character, and it provides an environment for raising children. How well did my marriage to Wife fulfill these two goals?

It certainly schooled my character. I have mentioned in a couple of places (for example here) that without my marriage I would never have grown up, but would have stayed the same immature prat I was back then.

And to all appearances our kids (Son 1 and Son 2) have turned out to be responsible citizens of the world. Son 1 holds a regular job, and supports Wife because her own income is so low. (I think badly of Wife for leaning on him, but well of Son 1 for shouldering the responsibility.) Son 2 held a regular job until recently and has just started graduate school; he has also moved in with his girlfriend Beryl, which means he is navigating an adult romantic relationship. I'm skittish about claiming any credit for how well they appear to have turned out, but they do appear to have turned out well.

In other words, for all its instability, my marriage with Wife appears to have fulfilled successfully the two general goals I identified above for any marriage. My God, who knew?

Unstated agendas, and the inner number

What about our secret, unstated agendas? Of course they were unstated, so it's harder to list them. But maybe I can identify a couple:

• I wanted marriage to get me out of the house and away from Father. My marriage did that.
• I wanted a "normal" domestic life with kids. I got that too.
• Wife wanted marriage to lift her out of poverty and into the middle class. I can't speak for her situation today, but for 19 years we owned a house. For 19 years we were part of the so-called responsible, property-owning, professional-managerial class.

In other words, the marriage may have been a success at the level of the unstated agendas too.

And the inner number? Was our marriage based on shared service? Well, kind of. Despite all the abuse she hurled at me over the years, despite the infidelity and the violent rages and the freezing contempt Wife leveled at me day in and day out … she needed my emotional support desperately. When I asked her for a divorce and pulled that support away from her, she was lost.

It's not so clear to me how much emotional support I got from her, except insofar as I felt supported simply by my status as a married man. I felt that gave me a place in the world that mattered. And even that is something. 

Wow. First I figured out that I got to live one of my most ardent and recurring fantasies. Now I realize that my marriage was really a success after all. What other new understanding could possibly come next?