It’s contempt that kills a marriage

A file photo of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne.

A file photo of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne.

Published Mar 29, 2012

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London - On the face of it, there doesn’t seem to have been much wrong with Alan and Susan Rae’s marriage. As she explained to the Appeal Court this week, they’d been together 20 years and during that time there were only two real bones of contention between them.

Both of them, according to Susan, were her husband’s fault: his refusal to stop using the washing machine, and his insistence on buying “intensively-farmed meat” for his sandwiches.

Her response was to remove the fuse from the washing machine and to throw away his packed lunches.

Weren’t these, as she said to the appeal hearing judge, merely the humdrum “everyday family difficulties” that form a part of every marriage? Or were they - as her husband believed - sufficient reasons for divorce?

The judge agreed with her husband and granted leave for the divorce to be made final on the grounds of her unreasonable behaviour. And even though I’m a fervent believer in marriage, and think that many couples get divorced far too easily, I must say I’d have done the same.

Susan Rae said the case had “elevated trivialities” in the marriage. But removing a fuse to stop your partner using the washing machine is not an elevated triviality, it’s low-level warfare - and once a marriage has reached this stage, the chances of ever getting it back on track are slim indeed.

What kills a marriage is contempt and lack of respect. You can have a screaming row, after which you both truly believe you never want to speak to each other again. But if you still fundamentally respect and care about one another, your relationship will survive.

Sometimes rows can even sustain a marriage. We’ve all encountered couples who seem to need regular bouts of emotional upheaval in order to prove to each other that they still care.

Only this week, Sharon Osbourne revealed that the reason her 29-year marriage to rock star Ozzy has survived, despite drug-fuelled rages and beatings, was because she hit him back and refused to be a victim.

He then went into rehab, she took antidepressants - and they are happier now than they ever were before.

“We fit together,” she said. “I can’t imagine life without my husband. I have so much respect for him.”

But most of us also know couples at the other end of the scale. For them, all passion is spent and their marriage has become a deadly war of attrition.

If compassion and compromise are the twin engines that power a marriage to happiness and fulfilment, then control and contempt are the weapons that will destroy it.

The damage they inflict may seem inconsequential at first: getting up to make a cup of tea but not offering to make your partner one, perhaps, or using all the hot water when you know they want a bath. But repeated day after day, week after week, year after year, these slights can build a wall of hatred that eventually becomes insurmountable.

Then there are the couples where one continually puts the other down in public, belittling and demeaning the person they allegedly love most, refusing to speak to them for days.

Behaviour that would have been unthinkable when they were first married becomes the unpleasant norm, with neither partner prepared to make concessions.

We don’t know why Susan Rae didn’t want her husband to use the washing machine - most of us would be delighted if our husbands chose even to learn which button does what - but removing the fuse to prevent him from using it is a pretty clear indication of a bankrupt relationship.

Marriage is a long game. To survive it, you need not just love and respect but the wisdom to realise that most things are simply not worth fighting over.

Susan Rae will never again have to worry about her husband using the washing machine. She won that battle - but lost her marriage. - Daily Mail

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