Came down here to say exactly this. Thank you.

This. It’s being deployed as code for ‘transgressive.’ As in, ‘my daughter isn’t a regular girl. She’s something *other*.’ Proudly, in this fictional case, but that term would have been chosen because it signals transgression/other, and that’s what makes it problematic.

Literally laughing out loud because my head went to exactly the same place.

Yeah, it’s a little baffling. These are two grown-ass adults who made the decision to marry, and for one of those adults, that decision represented a concession. He decided that staying with her was more important than his discomfort with the idea of marriage. I guarantee that he will make many more concessions over…

Except that they did stay together. He made the choice he made. There’s no evidence that he’s unhappy with it. As you say below, we’d either need to get inside his head or flash forward x years to see if they last/don’t last to show otherwise. On the face of it, two grown people made choices to be together, and they…

Yep. Only they know, really.

Aaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhh making tear up just reading those lines

Exactly.

For many people, sure. But clearly not for this couple. It seems he decided that marriage was a reasonable concession to make to stay with the person he loves. I don’t see why that concession, for some people, is a failure. I’ve been married a long time. I’ve conceded many things, made many compromises, as has my…

How do you get partly married? Or partly not married? As I said in a comment above, compromise in a relationship is a cycle that runs over time. I concede here, you concede there. If we trust each other, we trust that our relationship is a give and take and that our concessions will balance out.

Compromise doesn’t necessarily consist in the specific moment or instance. You might compromise - concede, sure - over here; you partner does it over there. In each instance it might be a concession, but taken over the course of a relationship it’s a cycle of compromise. I let this go, you let that go. If she’d given…

Thank you!

If he resents her for wanting him to take this step, then it was never going to work anyway. Long term relationships require a shit-ton of compromise, and this isn’t (wasn’t) an unreasonable one to hope for.

Twenty years for me today and although it’s been hard work at times, it’s been absolutely worth it. Good on Melissa for knowing what she wanted and holding to it.

I have medium sized boobs and I loathe padding. My boobs are enough, thanks much. I’ll take a little underwire to keep them aloft but I don’t need to layer a second set of boobs over top.

Same. I can see working through a lot of things - however hard doing so may be - but abuse? No. No second chances on that one.

I want to have this Thanksgiving.

Add Catherine Keener and you have my trifecta of Wildly Underrated Actresses.

It’s a pretty good manifesto as-is ;) And I will DEFINITELY read your blog, thank you!

Nina Simone’s Beautiful Land. The Little Prince. Dumbo. The opening sequence in Up. The song Hallelujah (especially the k.d. lang version). The Joy Luck Club. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Jesse sequence in Toy Story 2. Anything Sarah Mclachlan, really, including the aforementioned Jesse sequence and also those damn dog…