Real Reasons

Men, Women

Cry At Weddings

By Anthony Buccino  

Sentimentality is another word often used interchangeably with women, especially when it comes to long traipsing veils, elegantly stitched beading, embroidered tablecloths, bedspreads and peu de chose.

Men, well, men do cry at weddings, but no one ever sees the tears. It's that "life as you knew it has changed forever, pal" sort of whimpering in the corner that men -- married and free -- do.

Not that getting married is a bad thing. People have been doing it for ages, centuries, in fact, although few people have actually been known to stay married for much more than 100 years -- at least not since the great flood. Getting married or hitched or installing that nose ring puts a formality on the exercise of oneness for two people.

For better or worse, two people pledge to stay together through sickness and health, thick and thin and lovers' spats over who has the remote control after 9 p.m.

Yes, getting married is a serious business. Any two people who could plan and execute -- is that a good word here? -- a wedding and still be talking to their relatives and each other when the reception is through deserve to be married to each other. Fact is, if the betrothed couple can get through the strategic seating placement of relatives who haven't spoken to each other in years, and still be talking to each other at the end of the aisle deserve each other.

There is more to getting married than the first steps of that first mile down the aisle. For one thing, there is all that furniture to choose for the first home. If guys had their way, that first home would look much like a bachelor pad -- mostly distinguished by cinder blocks and plywood with a great big TV and his big stupid slobbery dog sleeping anywhere it wants.

The new bride, on the other hand, always wants everything to be perfect, from the burl and brass furnishings to the Priscilla curtains and Queen Anne lace doilies. It has something to do with that long ago quest to get everything just-right in the converted shoe box that held hand-drawn furniture -- that too, has been scientifically proven through extensive women's studies at universities with coed dormitories.

As my bride and I embark on the magical ride of our 21st year of wedding bliss, she reminds me that she gave me the best years of her life. That would be 1978 and 1981, of course. But seriously, it has been my sense of humor that has helped Super Glue this nuptial for lo, these two decades.

Often, my wife has said, if she couldn't laugh, she'd cry. I always figured that was what she meant when she said, "If I had it to do over again, I'd do it over you." Certainly, I jest. She never said that, not aloud, or in front of witnesses.

As a long-term veteran of this monogamy, the question comes to mind, where did the years go? It seems like only yesterday we tied the knot, when, in fact, it was 20 years ago yesterday we smilingly slapped on the old ball and chain. Through it all it has seemed as though we've been swimming a marathon across some big wide ocean. Every time we crest another wave, here comes yet another flourish of seaweed and brine to slog through. But if our life together does not go along swimmingly, at least there are two of us together to weather the swells.

That, after all, is the reason in the first place for the nuptials. And that, perhaps is why men cry so quietly inside at weddings, because weddings remind the guys that no matter how strong or massive, or muscular or imposing, men, no matter how big and stupid or whatever dumb things they do, were not meant to go through life alone.

Women may ultimately confess that they are crying because forever after they are responsible for the big lug in the tuxedo, through beer belly and used cars, through spilled paint cans and muddy foot prints, through midnight crises and early morning fishing trips -- that big lug will be waiting for a big hug more today than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.

 Copyright 1997-2007 © By Anthony Buccino. All rights reserved.

First Printed 6/19/97 By Worrall Community Newspapers.

This essay was adapted from 

Rambling Round - Inside & Outside at the Same Time

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