What defines a marriage?

I recently read a book by John Walsh on the horrific murder of his little boy and how it has led to all of the laws we have in place today that protect our children. It’s a fascinating book, though heartbreaking and hard to read. I highly recommend it. Mr. Walsh makes a statement in it that I want to address. When speaking of the birth of his son, he stated that until you have a child, you’re not really married. You’re just cohabiting. Matter of fact, he says specifically “Until you have a child, it’s not the real deal.” He feels pretty strongly about it, too, citing unnamed childless couple he knows who basically go on vacations together and may or may not even talk.

What a judgmental thing to say. Considering the sheer amount of reasons for a couple to be childless, it borders on ableism.

I’d like to first briefly discuss my reasons for not having a child. I suppose if you want to get technical, I do have children. I’ve had at least two miscarriages. Most women have more that they don’t know about, from what I have been told. I firmly believe those children are with God and that Adam and I will meet them someday. I’m not going to lie, though. They were totally unplanned. I joke around that I didn’t have kids because I teach 180 teenagers a day and that’s enough, but there were far more complex reasons. (But my quiet house is nice after school.)

There were a few factors in our decision to forgo having children. We discussed the effects of pregnancy on my body, and the effects of being unmedicated for so long. I had been told that I would go into remission during the pregnancy, but it would be awful after the baby was born. It could worsen the effects of the disease drastically. I was also worried about my long term disability on Adam. I didn’t think it would be fair if I ended up unable to work, and he was taking care of me and a child with very little help. We decided not to adopt because of my mental health. There are frequent times with the type of anxiety disorder I have when I need to recharge and no one but Adam is allowed in my bubble. That’s not an option with kids.

So the question remains, are Adam and I really married? We don’t have kids, so is it the real deal? I’ll let you decide.

When I say that Adam is my rock, I’m not exaggerating in any way. People always talk about a marriage being “50-50”, and I’ve never thought that was exactly true. In my opinion, a good marriage is 100-100. You don’t give half effort. If you don’t give your marriage everything, then you are going to have problems. Your spouse is your life partner. The center of your life. You should be making all decisions together, since all decisions affect both of you. You’re a team. The problem is, in a marriage where one is disabled, 100-100 doesn’t actually look like 100-100. It’s a bit more lopsided.

The responsibilities and burdens taken on by the able-bodied spouse are tremendous. We made vows to each other to be there for each other in sickness or in health, until death do us part. There’s been so many days that I couldn’t move. Adam worked, did the cooking, the cleaning, and took care of me. He fully supported me through college and has encouraged me in everything I have set out to do. He has worked full days and sat with me in the hospital at night. He helps me fight through anxiety attacks, and does everything I can’t do when my body isn’t working. I can’t list everything he does for me. I sometimes feel like he got the short end of the stick on spouses, but I joke that he can’t leave because I he knew I had RD well before he popped the question. In truth, though, I think somewhere along the lines of 85-90% of marriages where one partner is disabled fails. Many times, the able-bodied partner either can’t handle the stress, or they can’t handle seeing their spouse go downhill. I can’t imagine the pain that must cause.

I don’t take Adam for granted, and I never will. I hope he knows that I give everything I’ve got to our marriage, but I know that circumstances force him to do far more than I ever could. I couldn’t make it without him. Our marriage is about living our lives together, intertwined as one. We have a fantastic partnership built on love, trust, and making our relationship the center of our lives. I don’t know how much more you have to do to be considered “married”, but I don’t know how we could do more. And the children? It wasn’t in the cards for us. We will meet our children one day. But that doesn’t make us “cohabiting”, as John Walsh claimed in his book. I have a fantastic marriage, and it didn’t take being lucky enough to have children to make it that way.