Marriage is Hard Work; So is Divorce

The Sundance Now, BBC series, The Split, brilliantly captures the emotions, heartache, messiness, and collapse of relationships both in marriage and divorce.

I recently subscribed to Sundance Now and while browsing the program selections found this gem.

Marriage has got to be one of the most complicated of human relationships we will ever enter. Society, Church, and Hollywood, have too often created an illusion surrounding marriage that simply does not exist in reality.

Marriage is hard work. Most relationships are. But marriage requires a stubborn love, a willingness to change and grow, an unconditional acceptance of the other in all of their character flaws, irritating habits, stubbornness, sensitivity to criticism, and well, just being a human being.

The idea that we can be married a lifetime is a lovely concept, but life has a way of interrupting things, and staying together to the end is not for everyone.

I have often suggested to friends there ought to be term limits on marriage, sort of like Congress. Whether it’s 3 years, 5, or 10, why not renegotiate after a certain period of time and honestly and seriously see if things are truly working out? And if one or the other of you are not able to get re-elected, so to speak, then time to move on.

My married friends gasp at this, as though I have suggested the death penalty. Though a few have smiled curiously at me, as though they are thinking, Hmmm, that might work.

Anyway, The Split is about the Defoe family of four women in London, three of them family divorce attorneys. The matriarch, Ruth, heads the Defoe law firm and her middle daughter, Nina, is a partner there. Hannah, the oldest, has left them to join another firm. She was supposed to take over Defoe, but mom Ruth, decided she wanted to keep running things, so Hannah, feeling betrayed and hurt, left.

Rose, the youngest daughter, is a nanny.

All four women are unique characters in their own right. Ruth, a dominating mother is often cold and calculating, both at her law firm and with her daughters. But underneath her hard shell is a wounded soul fighting to protect and hide her broken spirit. Hanna, the oldest daughter, is an idealist who wants to genuinely help couples traverse the grueling road that is divorce. But she can be fierce when necessary. She is married with three children and learns that her own relationship with her husband is not what she thought. Nina, the middle daughter, is a free spirit, clever and funny. Still single, she wants to like men but can’t find one that can handle her. Rose, the youngest, is a zany flower child, innocently delicate but lost in people-pleasing and bewilderment.

What you have here is a terrific display of people struggling, enjoying, trying to figure out, hating, and loving-- marriage, family, and relationships. It’s one of the most honest portrayals of family life I have seen in a long time.

By the way, the husband and father, Oscar Defoe, who with Ruth founded their law firm, left all of them 30 years ago. We’re not really told why, but he took a young wife and has lived with her in New York City for years. He has returned to London after all this time to try and reconnect with his daughters. As you can imagine, things go haywire.

I love these characters. I want to root for all of them. Their authenticity touches real places in me. Their pain, their simple dreams for one another, their calamitous betrayals, their damaged selves, instruct me. Their beauty, their infectious humor, their vulnerable egos, and their deep affections affirm and move me.

Marriage is hard work. But so, too, is divorce, as the Defoe family reminds us.

Nietzsche once wrote, “It’s not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” There is so much truth in that. The best marriages I know have created a solid friendship above all else.

Jane Featherstone, the producer of The Split, has written, “This is a series for anyone who has fallen in love, fallen out of love, or is still trying to understand what love is all about.”

And haven’t we all been there?

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