#118. The Leading Cause of Divorce

I think being at home for the past ten weeks watching TV while my broken foot healed has illuminated some stark realities about life.  Generally speaking, watching TV for twelve to fourteen hours per day for any extended period of time could be said to be the activity of a sloth-like pothead agoraphobic with serious emotional issues.  Aware of the profile of such a TV watching slug, I partook nonetheless.  I mean, I really watched the commercials, the sitcoms and reality shows of cable and networks and the How-To’s of the Food Network. 

Thanks to TV, I was destined to lose weight.  There is one show on The Food Network called, “Food Factory” that is one of the scariest shows I have ever seen.  This show profiles various products made in food manufacturing plants and documents how they create their vulgar and toxic products. The process of creating frozen meals, meat products, baked goods, candy, and prepared ‘fresh’ foods are revealed in an upbeat, cheery manner like the machinery churning eight thousand pounds of sugar and preservatives are somehow enticing.  This show was the best diet I have ever unknowingly tried.  Watching each oil, dye and every other disgusting bulk ingredient being dumped into a vat operated by an underpaid, uneducated labourer was just vile and depressing.  Sure we see all these shiny and well marketed products in the grocery store that may look healthy and/or tasty, but when I saw the dissection of what each product actually consists of beneath the glossy package,  I simply could not bring myself to eat any packaged or manufactured ‘foods’ from thereon.  As I write this I want to vomit just thinking of the factory made crap. Uch.

After a few episodes of ‘Food Factory’, I had to find other shows if I were ever going to eat anything ever again.  As I flipped around for hours, I started to notice that there was one common thread that prevailed throughout every single show and commercial that I saw.  This theme was so blatant that I wondered how I never noticed it before.  It became crystal clear that EVERYTHING in our economic and social systems are based on marriage and coupling.  Let me explain.

 “The Bathelorette” features a woman trying desperately to find a husband.  “House Hunters” is usually couples and/or families looking to purchase a home for their brood.  “Four Weddings” is a show where four petty brides judge each others weddings to decide who has the best event to receive the prize of a dream Honeymoon.  “Million Dollar Neighbourhood” document families trying to climb out of the mountains of debt they have created for themselves through facilitating the dream of marriage and family.  “Mistresses” is a new nighttime soap where women are either breaking up other people’s marriages, their own or trying to marry.  Even the Cascade dish washing detergent commercial where two women actually break into a fight about the cleanliness of a dish washing machine necessitating a repugnant ‘Kitchen Councillor’ to intervene (as a side note, I seriously want to track down the actress who plays this idiot as well as the advertising geniuses who created this nonsense and slap them all silly) as women evidently don’t have anything more interesting to discuss.  Don’t even get me started on all of the religious programs and televangelists who ‘speak for God’ and preach the concept of marriage as the true gospel…  Clearly organized religion was created to control society – especially women.  Until God, if there is in fact one such entity, decides to tell me directly that this concept of ‘marriage’ is the natural order of things then, and only then, will I re-consider my position.

Our concept of marriage is a big bunch of bullshit providing the emotional basis of every product sold with the attached perception that the consumer can somehow get closer to attaining the Norman Rockwell lives that we have been trained to strive towards with every dollar spent.

Just about every single show and commercial on television is based on perpetuating the goal of a fairy-tale like marriage.  It’s everywhere!!!  I realized that I have been so socialized – brainwashed if you will – to expect and seek out a partner that it is a part of my DNA and impossible to disconnect from that desire.  Even if I can dispel the myth of marriage and it’s seeming incompatibility with human nature, I remain absolutely compelled to find one man to love who will love me back!  I can’t help it!!!  How can I when the possible beauty and stability of love within a long term relationship is reinforced at every turn? 

I am very clear that most marriages suck.  Like the Food Factory products, the exterior may look enticing and desirable but when you look at the components that create these nutrition barren Cancer causing treats, they aren’t things that one would rationally choose to enhance one’s own health and well-being.  I’m sure the odd manufactured product may be healthy and delicious, but that is not the majority!  The majority of slop featured on ‘Food Factory’ will make you sick and fat.  Much like a bad marriage.

I don’t know how to rid myself of the deep rooted desire to still want a long term relationship with one person.  How do I disregard such an instilled need and longing for the affection and stability of one quality male human being?  The fantasy that there is someone out there who will love, support and encourage me to become the best me possible and appreciate the same reciprocation is one of my most powerful motivations.  Is that realistic at all???  Have I just been unlucky and a great relationship is possible?  I suspect that I am an active participant in the big fairy-tale marketing scam that we all have been victims to from the day we were born but feel helpless to usurp it. It’s a conflict.

I am going to start dating again as I am limping quite spiritedly at this point and never looked better so I have to carpe diem! But since the reality of what’s beneath all shiny packages has entered my consciousness, I will take things slowly. Especially after the big romance crash and burn from three months ago before I broke my foot.  I am not clear on what happened there as all indicators were pointing to something special until he abruptly disappeared.  Guess his shiny package fooled me much like the ‘Food Factory’ crap.  Face value is just superficial.  No more ‘assuming’.  As the old adage goes: To ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and Me.

I know that in reality most marriages involve two pretty unhappy people that may have had something enviable at some earlier point in time, but have simply outgrown the relationship and become different people needing and looking for different things.

Long story short, I have finally figured out what the leading cause of divorce is:  MARRIAGE.