Married Love - Audra McDonald

Married love, married love

Here’s my strategy of married love

If it seems your hopes are growing dim

Don’t forget that you chose him

Don’t forget that you chose him

So he must be wonderful, right?

If your brain rules your heart

That’s a problem, baby, from the start

You cannot trust your brain

It’s the brain that goes insane, and not the heart

No, not your heart

You’re a woman

With a thousand little pockets in her being

You tuck away all the little pains for other days

A man doesn’t have those little pockets in his being

His system of emotions is no complicated maze

He’s straighter and simpler than you

And to love him, you must be simpler, too

Which is not an easy thing to do

So, what to do?

Go back to a time when you first felt love

Before you played the game

Go back to a time before you learned

How to bait, and then humiliate

And when to delegate the blame

You were young and felt your love

And it was wonderful

He noticed that you loved him

And yes, he was wonderful

You didn’t demand or second guess

Or thought in terms of more or less

Your heart put on its Sunday dress

And you were wonderful

But you grew up

Not every day is Sunday, your Sunday dress comes off

In your fairy tale hungry mind, you’re disappointed

You analyze and question, someone must be at fault

And your fairy tale prince becomes the one anointed

He may not be the reason, he just happens to be there

And the Sundays turn to weekdays, and your joy turns to despair

He’s oblivious, like an innocent boring into rotten fruit

You stock your ammunition, find your target, and you shoot

You lose what makes you feminine

It’s the only thing you’ve truly owned

And there you are, discontented

With the prince whom you’ve dethroned

You were right in saying, «forever after»

Cinderella-minded, as you are

The fairy tale leaves you with a beautiful sentence

About happiness ever after

But you forget that before it came to that poetic ending

There were dangers, and sorrows, and hardships

You will remember your instinct’s antennae

Your antennae will tell you many things:

What he likes and dislikes

His desires for the day

When to talk, when to listen

When to say what you must say

How is work is or isn’t

When to kiss him, or when not

When to praise him, or critique him

Either slightly or a lot

Don’t treat him like an object

Like his toothbrush or his comb

Just because his things are near you

Doesn’t mean he won’t leave home

Be his mother, his child

The moon to his sun, the silver to his gold

Grow kinder together, grow closer together

And together you’ll grow old

Be his life, be life

And, above all, don’t interrupt or correct them

When they’re telling one of their stories

Let them tell their story

Married love, married love

That’s my strategy of married love

If it seems your hopes are growing dim

Don’t forget that you chose him

Don’t forget that you chose him

So he must be wonderful, right?

Right