Marriage - Life’s Casino Royale
Of all of the things I’ll always cherish about my honeymoon, the connection my wife and I had in the casino will stand out the most. Don’t get me wrong, it will definitely be in perspective with other significant moments, but she and I sitting at the black jack table will always be one of those pictures that stand out in my mind’s photo album.
I remember it so well because my wife is pretty strict when it comes to gambling. She’s not for taking two grand out of an ATM and trying to turn it into $10k. In fact, she’s more along the lines of “as soon as I lose, I’m out of here.” Not lose a certain amount of money, lose a hand.
So on our Caribbean cruise, I somehow managed to talk her into accompanying me to the ship’s casino one evening. Reluctantly, she followed me down to the glittering trap of chance, her mind’s eye transfixed on my gambling patterns ever so keenly. But something strange happened on the way to play 21. Maybe it was the permanence of our matrimonial bond, maybe it was the magic of being married at sea, or maybe it was the energy of drunk tourists loudly about the casino floor, but she had a change of heart on her gambling perspective. No, she didn’t become Annie-Get-Your-IRA-Fund, but she did experience an unique thrill that comes with gambling.
She became a willing gladiator in the man vs. cards battle royal.
You may think, ‘oh, she just got used to playing some cards,’ but it was a little more than that to me. Because as stringent as she had been about gambling and the possibility of losing a substantial amount of money, she never once mentioned a nervousness about life’s biggest gamble, marriage.
The prospect of a broken heart, divided assets, and the pity of family and friends never crossed her mind. Not that it crossed my mind, but when you really consider just how deep the pool of marriage is, you appreciate the notion that it’s one of the few institutions in life that is truly sink or swim.
This may be one of the reasons marriages are just a likely to fail as they are to sustain, because pop culture has embraced the idea of a life ‘Reset’ button. People are more dedicated to riding out several band hands or a dry slot machine spell than working on communication problems with a spouse. There’s something wrong when folks are more willing to wait on the big score than life’s biggest achievement.
And yet, she used to be uptight on black jack tables. Special emphasis on “used to be.”