The Marriage Book (39 page)

“The Fire and the Hearth” refers to the fire that Lucas, despite everything, has kept burning in the couple’s home since the day they married.

Husband and wife did not need to speak words to one another, not just from the old habit of living together but because in that one long-ago instant at least out of the long and shabby stretch of their human lives, even though they knew at the time it wouldn’t and couldn’t last, they had touched and become as God when they voluntarily and in advance forgave one another for all that each knew the other could never be.

CANDICE BERGEN

KNOCK WOOD
, 1984

Actress Candice Bergen (1946–) was thirty-three and had never been married when she and the French film director Louis Malle began dating. In Bergen’s autobiography, she wrote that it took a while before they shook off their habitual mistrust and allowed the relationship to become romantic. They married the following year, and were married until Malle’s death in 1995.

Here I was, in our late-night conversations, invariably curled up in the overstuffed armchair opposite his place on the sofa. Never daring, never dreaming to sit next to him on the couch. It took Louis to close the chasm. To take the risk. One night, he asked me quietly, smiling softly, “Candy, can I hold you?” And I smiled and said emphatically, “
Oh yes
.”

I felt like a small frightened animal who had spent its life curled up in the back of a cave snarling at intruders when, suddenly, someone turned on the light and said, “It’s okay, it’s safe—you can come out now.” And from then, everything was simple, and I thought, So
this
is the point. I
understand
. Now it all makes sense.

BEN AFFLECK AND MATT DAMON

GOOD WILL HUNTING
, 1997

Good Will Hunting
starred Ben Affleck (1972–) and Matt Damon (1970–) and won them the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The story, about a disenfranchised mathematical genius named Will Hunting (played by Damon), featured Robin Williams (see
Divorce
) as a down-to-earth psychotherapist named Sean Maguire, whose challenge is to help Will learn how to embrace both life and love.

GREG BEHRENDT AND LIZ TUCCILLO

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
, 2004

Colleagues from behind the scenes of the TV show
Sex and the City
(see
Unmarried
), Greg Behrendt (1963–) and Liz Tuccillo (1962–) published their instantly bestselling, brutally frank, and funny-but-wise advice book after an office conversation in the writers’ room. With Behrendt lending his male point of view to a meeting filled with women, Tuccillo was inspired to realize that knowing when a man wasn’t right for marriage might be considerably easier than knowing when he was.

Just remember this. Every man you have ever dated who has said he doesn’t want to get married or doesn’t believe in marriage, or has “issues” with marriage, will, rest assured, someday be married. It just will never be with you. Because he’s not really saying he doesn’t want to get married. He’s saying he doesn’t want to get married
to you
. There is nothing wrong with wanting to get married. You shouldn’t feel ashamed, needy, or “unliberated” for wanting that. So make sure from the start that you pick a guy who shares your views for the future, and if not, move on as quickly as you can. Big plans require big action.

Marriage is a tradition that has been somewhat imposed on us, and therefore has a lot of critics. Be that as it may, if someone is as against marriage as you are for it, please make sure there aren’t other things going on besides he’s just not that into the institution.

Dear Greg,

I’ve been dating a guy since I was twenty-three. I’m twenty-eight now. We started talking about marriage two years ago, and he said he wasn’t ready. So we moved in together to help him get “ready.” We talked about it recently and he said that he still wasn’t ready. He reminded me that we’re young and we still have a lot of time and there’s no need to rush. In a way, he’s right. I’m only twenty-eight and people get married much later these days. And sometimes it takes longer for guys to grow up than girls. So I want to be understanding, but I’m just not sure how long I’m supposed to wait. Does he need more time or is he just not that into marrying me?

Danielle

Dear Waiting at the Altar, He’s right. Why rush? It’s only been five years. He’s going to know you so much better after ten. And you have all the time in the world, right? You know, in case after ten years he decides he’s
still
not ready. I hate to tell you this, but here’s why he feels rushed: He’s still not sure you’re the one. Yep, my lovely, I know it’s hard to hear, but better to hear it now than ten years from now. So you can stay with him and continue to audition for the part of his lucky wife, or you can go find someone who doesn’t need a decade or two to realize you’re the best thing that ever happened to him.

MARVIN HAMLISCH AND TERRE BLAIR HAMLISCH

INTERVIEWS, 2012

Composer of the musical
A Chorus Line
and the soundtrack to
The Way We Were
,
The Sting
, and some forty other films, Marvin Hamlisch (1944–2012) was the winner of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Golden Globe awards, as well as a Pulitzer Prize. He was a child prodigy who auditioned for and was accepted by Juilliard at the age of six. But despite his classical training, he was drawn to the world of songwriting, where his exuberance as a composer and sometime performer only enhanced his early success. In his forties, he encountered some professional setbacks and considerable pressure and self-doubt. But he also met his future wife, Terre Blair, then a TV reporter. A recent documentary intercut interviews in which each separately narrated the tale of their unusual courtship.

L

LASTING

MARK TWAIN

NOTEBOOK, 1894

Samuel Clemens (see
Adam and Eve
;
Endings
) had been married twenty-four years when he wrote this in his notebook.