Marriage and Groundhog Day

Like many families, our family has a tradition of watching movies together on Friday nights… affectionately called Family Movie Night. To the delight of my husband and I, our movie choices have been graduating as our children age, and we are finding ourselves watching movies we might have chosen to watch on our own. Not only this, but a flood of movies from our youth are moving to the top of the queue.

This February, in honor of Groundhog Day, we watched… Groundhog Day. (If there’s another way to celebrate the lowly holiday, I’m not sure what it is.) It’s a wonderfully fun family movie with a scene or two that might need fast-forwarding depending on the child’s age. Our boys laughed hysterically when Phil (Bill Murray) punched the way-too-happy Ned (Chris Elliott) after seeing him for the 4th day in a row. And my husband and I gave each other a look during the credits that said, ‘Is that the best movie ever made, or what?’ (as we often do with any movie made in the late 80s and early 90s). The nostalgia is missed on our kids, but they still like it.

As the movie came to my mind again later, it struck me that the point of the movie is not unlike marriage. Some people might equate being married with being stuck in the same day over and over. Chris Rock once said, “You can be married and bored, or single and lonely.” Certainly boredom can be a resulting emotion of repetition.

Getting married means saying no to other relationships. In the same way, being stuck in Punxsutawney, PA, means Phil Connors has to say no to other ambitions. The very first day, even before Phil knows he’s in a time loop, he is desperate to get out of town. He has plans of advancing his career, but the small town represents the death of his ambitions. It is filled with unimportant slow-movers. If it weren’t for being socked in by a blizzard, he would have been out of there by the afternoon. In less than 24 hours, he already feels stuck. He feels like the life he was meant to live is already slipping away from him. The traditional marriage vow says, “until death do us part”. Once he’s entered the time loop, Phil Connors can’t even get out of his situation through death (though he tries numerous times).

Boredom, saying “no” to other opportunities, and ‘feeling stuck’ are all shared experiences of Phil Connors and married couples. My husband and I are ten years past the seven-year itch. We’ve had some Groundhog Day moments in that time. So, why would anyone choose marriage given that fairly bleak reality?

The New York Times says that the majority of marriages don’t make it to their 25th anniversary. According to www.whatculture.com, Phil may have been stuck in his time loop for nearly 34 years. Let’s look at Phil’s arc over those 34 years.

In the beginning, Phil is a selfish, egotistical career man. Each person he interacts with is either in his way or someone he can use for his own purposes. As he becomes aware of his entrapment, he deals with it in a variety of ways. First, he decides to enjoy it by being reckless, like robbing a bank or driving on train tracks straight towards a moving train. Interestingly, he seems to bore of this tactic pretty quickly. Then, he tries to get the girl he wants by manipulating her emotions with his uncanny knowledge of her. She always sees through it by the end of the day and he doesn’t get the authentic connection that he doesn’t even realize he’s craving. After that, as mentioned, he then tries to quit life entirely. Even this is unsuccessful. Finally, and over the course of several years worth of days, he accepts his reality by taking up hobbies, helping his community, and being thankful for the people in his life. The ‘spell’ is at last broken.

When he wakes up the day after Groundhog Day, he does not want to get out of town as soon as possible. In fact, he says, “Let’s move here!”

At the start of the movie, 24 hours was a seemingly impossible amount of time to be in Punxsutawney. But his 34 year stint changed his mind, and in the end, he wants to stay forever. If he had been able to leave that first afternoon, he would have missed out on a soul transformation. When he was not stuck in a time loop, he was stuck in his soul. But by being stuck in a time loop, he was able to become unstuck in his soul. This is the same sort of transformation that marriage has the potential to do.

Yes, yes, I know we are all very lovely, unselfish people, but somehow when we get married, our spouse doesn’t always see us this way. They’re the only ones who get an up-close picture of our antics day in and day out. And they are the ones most affected, and thus, most bothered, by those antics. The hard part can be living with someone who annoys you and who is annoyed by you. The good news is that allowing yourself to stay “stuck” in marriage, and not punting, means it’s a great practice arena for learning over the long haul. You can make the same mistakes over and over to the annoyance of your spouse, and then one day, you find yourself making a different choice… a better choice, to the delight of your spouse. You learn! And your spouse learns. Some of this learning only takes one time of doing it the wrong way. Some of this learning will take years.

But as in Groundhog Day, the ‘entrapment’ could actually lead you into something beautiful. And you might wake up one day and find you’re in a place you never want to leave.

—

This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often

Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything