Marriage Moats-More or Less

Published: Thu, 01/20/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

How is it that when you share happiness it gets bigger and when you share sadness it gets smaller?

Yesterday I enjoyed having seven young women over for dinner. We laughed and talked and passed the apple pie. Each story about childhood games, or cross country trips suddenly expanded to connect all of us. The merriment grew, rather than disappeared like the pie.

Toward the end of the evening I had a more private conversation with one of them. It involved some pain. I hope, although I do not know, that the sadness diminished, just a smidge, for being voiced.

I try to imagine what this would look like in visible form...

I hold a warm muffin, smothered in jam, and hand it to my husband.

Poof! Now we both have one, as tasty as the first.

Where did the second one come from?

We hand them to our little girls to share, and when I blink there are four, where there was only one a moment ago.

Then I try to picture how sadness shrinks when it is shared.

I am holding a crying child, whose knees are scraped and bleeding.

She is heavy in my arms. My husband comes over and helps to cradle her. Suddenly the weight lightens. Our older son comes in, taking a leg to hold, and offers crooning words. She feels lighter still. After a minute more of savoring the attention, she pops out of our embrace and runs to play.

I do not know where the extra joy comes from, or the sadness evaporates to.

Perhaps the clouds do.

Photo by Andy Sullivan