I Am So Popular: I Do. No, Wait-- I Don't.

But of all the nightmarish scenarios I entertained, the one that gave me greatest pause was this: What if I have to go through the divorce all over again and, in the process, am forced to be in the same room with and exchange words with the man I thought I had successfully cut out of my life—another faulty part being forced back on me if you will? That thought made me sick.

I tried to turn it around, talk myself in from the ledge. Instead of viewing the county notice as a reason to fret, maybe I could look at it as a reason to celebrate. I could reflect back over what happened to me during that marriage (and, what the heck, the one before it): a short-lived trip to the depths of hell that took many thousands of dollars in therapy to help me sort through. I could take joy in knowing that I’m no longer in that place, that like Gloria Gaynor, I did survive, hey, hey.

Fast forward to Monday. The clerk admitted a mistake. I totally understand. We all make mistakes. And, I’d venture, most of the biggest mistakes we make come courtesy of the romantic relationships in which we situate ourselves. We can’t help it. Maybe it’s an unstoppable primal urge to stir up shit, seek out drama, put ourselves in the face of insurmountable challenges. I know, I know, that’s cynical. But marriage is, often enough, a gift of the Trojan Horse variety, all big and beautiful on the outside, but full of sure destruction once you really swing open the doors and see what’s inside waiting.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard and seen a number of difficult tales of romantic partnerships, both real life and in the movies. I read the love letters sent to a friend by her lover of many years—he never let more than a few days pass without writing some declaration of undying love and a hope for a together-forever future. He failed to mention to my friend that he was married to another woman. I watched Heartburn, that eighties movie based on the novel by the same name, which was based on the real life marriage of the author, Nora Ephron, to the Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who cheated on her when she was pregnant with their second child. I got an email from a long time acquaintance telling me of his divorce and, knowing both parties and how good they each are, my heart broke for both of them and their kids, too.

As a wedding minister that makes a good chunk of my annual change performing ceremonies legally uniting couples, I know I risk shooting myself in the foot here by asking this, but I’m asking anyway—What is the point of marriage? Who do you know who is and has been happily married for any real length of time?

Marriage, the saying goes, is the triumph of hope over experience. There are, of course, other sayings. I once—without thinking—told prospective wedding clients the old adage about how marriages are like pancakes—you throw the first one out. Seeing as this was the first go round for both of them, no surprise here, I did not get that gig. In Heartburn, Rachel (played by Meryl Streep) gets icy cold feet on her (second) wedding day. Before relenting and saying “I do,” she cries out, “Marriage doesn’t work. Divorce works.”

And yet the ideas of romantic partnership, long-term monogamy, and the concept that being single is somehow a lesser choice continue to dominate. Romance and its ugly fallout consumes the majority of us—witness ongoing tabloid tales of celeb marriages and divorces, blockbuster movies centered on courtship and weddings, online hookup sites galore, and a wedding industry that commands who knows how many billions of dollars annually. Now go back several centuries and note this is nothing new—Shakespeare paid his rent with the stuff of which romantic dreams and nightmares are made.

The other night, six of us gathered to watch He’s Just Not That Into You. We were two hetero couples, and two straight guys—one single and the other in a committed relationship but flying solo for the evening. There were plenty of good laughs but a good number of awkward moments during the screening, too, as one person or couple or the other recognized uncomfortably familiar dialogue and behaviors unfolding. For my part—and I hated this—I way over-identified with GiGi, who overanalyzed every guy encounter to the nth degree, and over-eagerly answered her phone while in the shower, hoping against hope it would be the guy who just wasn’t that into her.

How many times have I acted like that in my life? Too many to count. It was just this sort of wishful thinking, this hope of finding joy-in-another that led me to leap first into one hasty marriage and then, a decade later—falsely convinced I’d learned something in the interim—into another. The first time round, I was left literally fearing for my life, stalked for years by a terrifying brute. The second time round, I felt more sure because I knew, absolutely knew, we were both in love. And we were. The catch, I discovered, was that we were both in love with him. And that, even for Denial Queens, tends to wear thin after awhile.

In the interim, I spent seven out of ten years fully single, by which I mean no dating, no sex (yes, you read that right), focused on kid raising, career building, and self-improvement. I achieved the latter, but only to a limited extent, all that meditation and yoga and martial arts training teaching me about inner-strength and peace falling by the wayside when Bachelor Number Two showed up, promising the world, failing to mention it was a world of shit he had in mind.

Enter Warren, our gay marriage, and regular check-ins with self, that ongoing over-analysis on my part to decide if it’s really right, am I relying too much on someone else, where do we go from here? Despite how incredibly popular I am, and how wildly young and hot Warren is—and I know this will come as a shock to the masses—we have, gasp, had our own share of hurdles to clear in the nearly two years we’ve been together. (For example, Warren is a get-in-and-out-of-the-refrigerator-and-close-the-door-as-quickly-as-possible type, whereas I like to stand in front of a wide open fridge door for hours on end, just because it comforts me.)

Like a whole lot of other couples, one of us leans more toward Spock-like Vulcan assessment when the going gets tough and the other one of us is more of a hang-up-the-phone-mid-conversation emotional type. I’m not saying who is which.

Oh, well, shit, yes I am. I’m the emotional one, people—as so often the female half of a straight couple is wont to be. But I have learned something from past unions, and from this past weekend’s reflection on those failed unions of mine, and the relief of my county clerk conversation on Monday. Applying logic to matters of the heart is never easy, but realizing that I did not—as I used to think I might—die upon the demise of one relationship or another, helps me move forward in my gay marriage. Do I want Warren to stick around? Hell yes. And if he doesn’t? Well, I think my friend Lois, the intuitive and relationship counselor, described what that means in a recent blog post where she talks about how all relationships are terminal, so get over it already.

Getting back to the wedding business. I get very emotional at nearly every ceremony I perform. That is not bullshit. That is real. In that moment, saying those words that unite two people in love, witnessing that level of commitment, I like to believe that every single couple I marry is going to make it, that their hope will triumph over any past experiences they had to the contrary.

And if not? Well, you know there was this one bride—she actually hired me a second time. That was a really nice wedding, too.

Spike Gillespie only marries people who pay her to do so. She blogs at KnitBuzz and spikeg.com. She's teaching a writing workshop soon. Email spike@spikeg.com for details.