{"id":36068,"date":"2022-07-23T00:01:35","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T07:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=36068"},"modified":"2026-06-06T06:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:58:12","slug":"happily-married-one-of-you-is-going-to-get-your-heart-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/happily-married-one-of-you-is-going-to-get-your-heart-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Happily Married? One of You Is Going to Get Your Heart Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"couple-on-michigan-beach<\/a>
My father and mother in the 1930s. They were married 53 years. Barbara Newhall photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happily married? One of you is going to get your heart broken.<\/p>\n

On the flight home from a visit with the grandchildren, I sat next to a couple who looked a lot like Jon and me maybe ten years ago. They bickered for while, worked a crossword puzzle together, then had a long conversation about something that seemed to interest them both. He put his hand on her shoulder. She put a hand on his knee.<\/p>\n

They appeared to be what’s known as happily married.<\/p>\n

Married. When I see couples like this — genuinely, thoroughly married, some of them just starting out, others with some years packed on — I think, but I don’t say out loud, “You look like you’re happily married. One of you is going to get your heart broken.”<\/p>\n

Still In Our Closet<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Home from the airport, I roll my suitcases into the bedroom and step into the closet Jon and I once shared. I spot Jon’s khakis and nightshirt still hanging from the hooks where he’d put them seventeen months ago, and I feel love. Love for a nightshirt. Love for a pair of khakis. Love for a man who has gone out of my life — for good, I’m told.<\/p>\n

When Jon was alive, my attention would fix on the crossword puzzles, on the bickering, on the easy conversations over dinner.<\/p>\n

What I didn’t pay attention to at the time was how much love I was carrying around for Jon.<\/p>\n

A Feeling Without a Place to Go<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Now, that love has no place to go. It looks for a place to light. It lands on what is left of Jon: his nightshirt and his khakis. And I want to say something more to that couple on the airplane.<\/p>\n

After I tell them about the heartbreak that awaits them, I’ll add, “You say you love each other. But, I’m telling you, you love each other way more than you think.”<\/p>\n

\"Happily<\/a>
Jon’s father and mother in 1936. They were married 59 years. San Francisco Chronicle photo<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happily married — one of you is going to get your heart broken, if all goes well.\u00a0 Is a life-long marriage worth this terrible price of admission? Some thoughts on that at “A Marriage Proposal. The Man Said Yes.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “Oh, Oh. Is Cabin Fever Setting In? Sheltering at Home Day 6.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"couple-on-michiga-beach<\/a><\/p>\n

When I see a happy couple, long-married or newlywed, I want to say, “Happily married? One of you is going to get your heart broken some day.”\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[578,338,187,34,29,689,517,518],"class_list":["post-36068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","category-widowed","tag-catherine-tinka-falconer","tag-dave-falconer","tag-death","tag-dont-miss","tag-jon","tag-marriage","tag-ruth-newhall","tag-scott-newhall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49191,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36068\/revisions\/49191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}