Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love got married when she was twenty-five. She credits her young age as a major factor of her first divorce. She has written extensively about how, when she was in her twenties, she really did not know what she was getting into. In the sequel to her smash hit of a book, she likened getting newly married to being a new mother. According to “Committed: A Love Story” marriage is like new baby, handed to a clueless couple who do not know what to do with the creature they created. About her first marriage Gilbert wrote, “Is it any wonder that [my first husband and I] went straight home and dropped that baby on its fuzzy head?”
Just recently, Gilbert announced that she is divorcing her second husband. She met “Felipe” (Jose Nuñez in real life) in Bali as catalogued in “Eat, Pray, Love.” After so much debating and researching and soul-searching, as evidenced in her modern treatise of marriage entitled “Committed: A Love Story”, Gilbert decided to marry Felipe. Having written such a meaningful book, I thought Gilbert would be wiser than to go through another divorce. But like a lot of women I knew who read her books, I am crushed.
Is there any hope for the rest of us?
I am also intrigued with the new revelation that she separated from her second husband because of a woman. Her woman. Gilbert is now in a romantic relationship with her best friend Rayya. Her girlfriend was diagnosed of Pancreatic cancer recently. Gilbert cites this as the event that opened her eyes to the reality that she has always been in-love with her best friend. Because Rayya may not live long or live at all, Gilbert decided to quit her marriage.
I am sad for her because I am sad for me.
In the Philippines, Divorce is Coming. We used to be the only country with the “No Divorce” Option, but that is about to change. It is only a matter of time.
So what am I going to do?
Wait! I am not anti-divorce, and neither do I plan to divorce my husband soon!
I am a married woman who is fearful that having the option for divorce is like opening a Pandora’s Box. Particularly, my Pandora’s Box.
Like a lot of married women out there, I too have secret fantasies of being SET FREE. Why not? No more commitment, no more children, lots of traveling, dating other men…
Hmmmm.
Sounds delicious.
If he does not seem to notice you anymore and you feel taken for granted.
If you don’t have a real job and you rely mostly on his income.
If you have to be the one at home to take care of trivial things like, oh, the children you have together.
Your personalities clash. A lot.
And a thousand other irritating reasons you want to be set free.
He leaves his dirty clothes on the floor. Hello! Kaya nga may hamper. (There is a clothes hamper.)
He does not close the screen door when there is already a sign there to remind him.
He leaves leftover food on the table; often he does not clean up after himself.
He’s too lenient with the kids, in your opinion, that’s far too much TV and candy.
Haay, when the bill is approved, I’m going to be one of the first women to line up for it.
According to Gilbert, Love and Marriage are two different things. She wrote in “Committed”, “Real, sane, mature love ─ the kind that pays the mortgage and picks up the kids after school ─ is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.”
Right now, I want to ask her, “What happened, woman?”
“I feel betrayed! I thought you believed in Marriage! I thought you’d stick in there long enough to make it work! And what will happen to “Felipe” now? If your love for Rayya dies, are you going back to him, or are you going to find another one? This time, is it going to be another man or another woman?
I am not the only person asking.
I have read angry blog posts that mar her personality and say she wasn’t the type cut up for marriage anyway. I have read rants about her being a selfish lady. On the other side of the fence, I have encountered other people who are openly supportive of her choice.
I am not wholly against her choice per se. Neither am I homophobic.
I am just broken hearted. If someone as intelligent and perceptive as Elizabeth Gilbert could fail with marriage, then how would I fare?
Can I “do” marriage?
The answer is: well, yes. Probably.
There is a high probability. And I am saying this using the insight of psychology.
I am not a fan of boxing people in using their profiles, but that being said, I am a psychologist by trade.
In my hands, I have my own profile and the profile of my spouse. Personal history, traits, temperaments, and all the other facts. I also have an interesting theory why the aforementioned author left her spouse. I’ll save that for later, but for now, give this a try.
My Marriage with my Husband is Different from Elizabeth Gilbert’s because of the following: And Because of the Following, I (Probably) will not Divorce Him:
- Cultural background – I live in the Philippines, she lives in America. In this country, our families, our friends, and our community at large are all invested in our marriages. People are just more concerned. And we are more likely to stick to the social conventions or Not Being Separated. In this country, separating from your spouse is a social stigma.
- Kids – In America and in the rest of Western Culture (in general), people who get married have an option not to have kids. In our country, this is not (very) acceptable. You get married, you have kids. Period. Because what is the point of marriage? Just the two of you? There are couples who do not have kids or who get married after they have kids and so on and so forth. But in the Philippines, it feels normal to want kids after marriage. The deeper reason for this is because marriage = kids = family. Filipinos are very family oriented. We are warm and connected in ways that would feel suffocating a lot of people from the West. (For instance, it is normal for us to live with our parents even when we are married.) Most Filipino families are extended families. Having many sets of eyes looking at us since birth, we are accustomed to being norm checked by our community. This ever-present community expects us to get married and have kids because this is “the way it is done”. I am judging this a good thing or bad thing. I am just saying that “This is How We Do it in the Philippines.”
- Kids (Part 2) – If you are married and you have kids, you are called a Parent. What does a responsible Parent do? Put the betterment of their children above their own happiness. For the sake of Family. For the sake of the kids. Oh I know of a lot of parents who hung with their unbearable partner forever. Just for the kids. And when they did leave, they felt guilty, sad, broken, and anxious.
- How she loves vs. how I love, or intimacy patterns – Gilbert has a recurring theme when it comes to her relationships with men. She likes them. She likes having boyfriends, and she loves chasing one relationship after another. In “Committed”, she writes, “But how do I know for certain that I will never again become infatuated with somebody else? How trustworthy is my heart? … How do I know without a doubt that outside desired won’t tempt us apart?” After throwing out these questions, Gilbert goes on a winding discussion about how to avoid the pitfall of infidelity, but she never quite answers her personal questions. I suspect, her answer would be, “I am not sure I can be faithful to my second spouse.” (Ominous, it may seem, but her prediction came true.) Me on the other hand, I don’t like “the game”. I don’t like dating so much. I am also not so much into sex. (Married sex is Ok with me. I like it stable. I like having sex with my husband just fine. But other men… the chase, the unknown factors…)
- Characteristics of the spouse – My husband Erwin has a deep nurturing side. Like all fathers I know, he loves the kids, and he would stay in the marriage for the kids. But he is staying in the marriage for me too. This was the guy who caught my fall. He noticed my downward spiral to Anorexia. He stuck by me even when I was in denial, he drove me to the hospital, he cheered me on when I started to recover. He did not abandon me at my lowest point. To have a supportive spouse when you have a mental disorder is a gold mine. And for that reason, I revised my definition of family. I thought Family left you when you are bad, and when you do bad things, when you are worthless and you would be abandoned. But this belief is wrong. Family sticks together. Thick or thin. (You can have a family, just you and your spouse, give or take your pets. But the impact, the pressure of keeping the family together is tighter if there are kids involved.)
- Relationship Dynamics – Gilbert writes in “Committed”, that “[T]o ask a twenty-year old-girl to somehow automatically know things about life that most forty-year-old women needed decades to understand is expecting an awful lot of wisdom from a very young person.” She believes that to enter marriage, a woman should be on her right thirties or older so she could be emotionally mature to handle the demands of marriage. Again, in the Philippines, we do not do it this way; Filipinos tend to get married around their twenties. My opinion echoes conventional belief that if you want to have that “wisdom”, getting married and working at the dynamics of being married at twenty-five is a great vehicle to get a grip on emotional maturity. The caveat is, at one point in a relationship, you and your partner arrive at the realization that “you cannot change the other person.” And if so, you ask yourself the next brave question, “Can you live with this other person whose annoying traits you cannot change?” In our case, we said “yes” to those questions. Some people say no. But when you say yes, the yes is often not a happy, happy, joy, joy “yes” but a “yes” with a wry smile. Because married life if full of ambivalence, everything isn’t a 10, and some things you have to live with even if you don’t like. That’s being married. That’s being family. A smooth relationship with your spouse is something you worked at together for years. For me and my husband, it would not have emerged if we did not have the patience to wait for our dynamics to develop. Erwin and I had to spend lot of time together. Sometimes, fighting. Marriage takes time, usually, time just passes by…when you are raising kids, constructing a functional, emotionally healthy family unit. With all its complex, intricate demands you just roll with it. The one day you wake up and, “HAPPY 30th Anniversary my dear Husband!”
Any psychologist worth her salt would say, “I am not handling Ms. Gilbert’s case, therefore I do not have the right to opine about her condition.” But I do have the right to talk about my case. I think I know now why I am fretting about my marriage in the light of my idol’s failed marriage: I am comparing myself to Elizabeth Gilbert. In Freudian terms, I am also projecting on Elizabeth Gilbert. I identify with her. Therefore I think what she does with her life will be what I will do with my life. I secretly, subconsciously, wishfully think I am her. And if she failed in her marriage, so would I. Because I admire her. The assumption is logically false. But emotions normally do not make sense.
If I look at what I have written above, I feel better.
Way lot better.
Last night, me and my spouse, we has a little tiff. I brushed it off. I found myself brushing it off. I was in tears when I decided to just let it slide. I did not let him see me cry because, I didn’t want him to feel guilty. I was dealing with my own problems. It is not the end of the world when your spouse says something insensitive, you know? Maybe he was just stressed? I wouldn’t know, and I don’t care too much to know. It was just an offhand remark and he already apologized. Don’t sweat the small stuff, girl.
I walked out of that experience saying to myself, “I better learn how to handle his offhand remarks better.” For the sake of my marriage, if I believe in it and I want to make it work, I better grow new emotional muscles.
Psychologists have a term for emotionally mature people. That term is “emotionally resilient”. And emotionally resilient people harbor difficulties like these with ease.
I’m getting there. Long way to go, baby, but I am getting there.
I am a product of my culture and my past and my inherited predispositions, traits, and gifts. My partner and I have gone through experiences different from “Felipe” and Elizabeth Gilbert. I want to be as talented and as successful as her, but I am not following her path when it comes to relationships with men.
My cherished author has a pattern of flux. She is attracted to tides and being swept away by romance. She needs to be swept away by a love so big she cannot deny it. There is a tidal quality to the way she loves. She wrote the book on marriage to convince herself that, “THIS IS IT, I will not stray anymore.” But she was wrong. She has a story, and that story is not mine. She will stick to her pattern, because she is a person and that is what most people do. They stick to their patterns.
So I probably will not divorce my husband. The question is, which direction will I go?
Why are you so unsure of yourself when it comes to marriage?
Because I am fearful that my husband will leave me.
Why?
Because THEY ALL LEAVE ME.
Aha! Then, what will happen if he does not leave you…
I will do something to make him leave me. Because I am mentally unstable and NOBODY REALLY LOVES ME. I AM UNWORTHY OF LOVE, Sob, sob, sob.
So…?
Crap! This is self-sabotage!
2025: note read my review of Elizabeth’s book Eat Pray Love on Goodreads.
The featured image on this blog was AI-generated by me using free tools, namely ChatGPT, Canva, and Leonardo AI. I use these images to support my written content creatively and cost-effectively.
