Marriage Rules

“Relationships are lousy with rules.” - Eve Dallas, Memory in Death

Eve is a stickler for rules and because of that, she has compiled her own set of what she calls “Marriage Rules.” These are things that she’s learned throughout her relationship with Roarke, and things that she is still trying to learn.

The following is a comprehensive list of those rules.

The Rules:

Rule #1: You need to tell your spouse when you talk about your relationship to someone else.

Eve to Feeney: “I’ll have to tell him I told you. I think that’s one of those marriage rules. There are too fricking many of them.”

Rule #2: If one of you is in pain or trouble, You’re not in it alone.

Feeney to Eve: “One of those marriage rules is if one of you’s in pain or trouble, you’re not in it alone. You suffering here, him there. That doesn’t work for either of you.”

Rule #3: It’s not a crime that you miss your spouse when they are away.

Maybe she missed her husband, she admitted. It wasn’t a crime. In fact, it was probably one of those marriage rules she was still trying to learn after more than a year in the game.

Rule #4: If you're going to be late, you contact your spouse and let them know.

Rule #4b: Let your spouse know when you are heading home after being late.

She glanced at her wrist unit, swore a little. She was already seriously late. According to the marriage rules, she needed to contact Roarke, give him her ETA.

Going to be late, she thought as she used the scrub in her kit in a stylish powder room with maroon walls.

According to the Marriage Rules—self-written and -enforced—she needed to let her own spouse know. Roarke understood the job’s screwy hours, but you had to follow the rules.

Even as she kept alert for tails, she thought of the Marriage Rules. “Text Roarke,” she ordered her in-dash. “Heading home.”

She drove through her home gates a little late. Not very, she decided, plus, she’d followed the Marriage Rules and tagged Roarke as requested.

Rule #5: If you’re going to host a briefing where you’ve promised to provide food, you contact your spouse and let them know.

She took the time to drink her coffee, to study her murder board, to consider her next steps. Before she took them she texted Roarke rather than tagging him in the middle of his workday.

“Briefing HQ, 1600. Promised food. OK?”

There, she thought, that covered the marriage rules, plus shifted to Roarke—she hoped—the obligation to inform Summerset he’d be feeding a bunch of cops.

Rule #6: “You take my stuff. I’ll take yours” - In other words, if you’re going to dump a bunch of your problems onto your spouse, you also have to listen to some of their problems.

“Did you have a thing mess up in the Universe of Roarke?” 

He smiled at her, tapped the dent in her chin. “You could say.”

“What?” 

“Not important, especially since I see we have champagne.” 

“No.” She shifted before he could walk past her. “You take my stuff. I’ll take yours.” 

He trailed a hand down her arm, over the soft sleeve of her sweater. “Marriage Rules?” 

“That’s right.”

Rule #7: Your spouse should put up with your visiting relatives.

“I owe you a very big solid for the evening,” he began.

“No, you don’t. Not only because visiting relatives are in the Marriage Rules, but because I just like them. And maybe it gave me some rest-the-brain-cells time. We’ll see.”

Rule #8: You should tell your spouse if you invite someone over, even if it is work.

Was she supposed to let Roarke know the Miras were coming? It wasn’t a social visit; it was work. He didn’t have to let her know if he had a business associate come by. Did he?

Oh hell, she’d never figure all the rules out, so better to err on the side of caution.

She’d just send him a quick text, and that hit somewhere in the middle, she decided.

Rule #9: Holding your spouse at the end of the day is necessary.

“I wanted to be here when you got home. You look exhausted.”

“That’s how I feel. Thanks for the assist—the financial hacking wizardry, the transpo.”

“Those are easy, and fun. This?” He put an arm around her, leading her up the stairs. : “This is necessary. It’s certainly in the marriage rules.”

“What is?”

“Holding on at the end of a hard day.”

Rule #10: If you have any children, there are a whole new set of rules to learn.

“The cop and the criminal?” He laid a stroke down her back. “I’d wager there’s a good many of those from steady families as well. Is that what worries you, Eve, about starting one of our own? Not time yet,” he added, helplessly amused by the quick panic in those canny cop’s eyes. “But when it is, is that your worry? We’ll either raise cops, criminals, or the too trusting?”

“I don’t have a clue. But just a for instance, who’ll remember to say, ‘No more fizzies’? What if I want one? Or no pizza for dinner again, when come on, why the hell not? It’s another endless set of rules to learn. I haven’t worked my way through the marriage rules yet.”

“And yet, here we are.” He lowered his head to kiss her lightly. “I think there’s a lot of on-the-job training involved in raising children.”

Rule #11: Your spouse has to deal with your moods.

She’d make this quick, just do a check, reinforce precautions, then take her soup and sour mood home. Roarke had to deal with her moods. It was in the marriage rules.

Rule #12: Sometimes Compromises have to be made.

While she arranged her board, he put a meal together. Which meant she wouldn’t get pizza, but compromises had to be made. It was in the marriage rules. He certainly made them, she thought, just by having the meal in her office at the little table with murder and death on full display.

Rule #13: When you invite a complete stranger to stay at your home, you must tell your spouse first.

(Regarding Deputy Banner staying at the mansion):

“Then things just kept rolling, and I forgot. So I’m sorry. Be pissed.”

“I am.” He changed his shirt for a sweater, cooling off as he did. “You’re fond of your Marriage Rules, so add this to them. If and when you’ve the inclination to host a complete stranger to me, you don’t forget to let me know. As the next time, I might stun first, ask questions later. I’m firm on that one.”

Rule #14: Don't embarrass your spouse at work by kissing them.

“I’ll take myself off to EDD,” Roarke told Eve. “And if I can’t be of use there, I’ll be elsewhere.”

“You could catch an hour’s sleep in the crib.”

“Not in this lifetime, or the next.”

“Snob.”

“So be it.” He’d have kissed her, actively longed to. But he understood there were Marriage Rules on either side. So he just flicked a finger down the dent in her chin and wandered away.

Rule #15: Sometimes you have to get dressed up and go to fancy events with your spouse even if you don’t want to, AND, complaining about it, even to yourself violates this rule.

Thank God he wanted those quiet nights, too.

Maybe sometimes they did the fancy bits—it was part of the deal, part of the Marriage Rules in her book. And more than sometimes he worked with her over pizza in her home office. The reformed criminal with the mind of a cop? A hell of a tool.

Eve wanted in the world of things to want was to get out of the excuse for a dress and the ankle-breaking heels she was wearing. She’d done her duty after all, and considered she’d earned a big red check mark on the plus side of the Marriage Rules column by decking herself out and painting herself up for an evening of playing wife of the business god.

Here she was, Eve thought, looking into the wild blue eyes of a man conjured by the gods on a particularly generous day, and she’d mostly griped internally for the bulk of the evening.

That, she decided, violated the spirit, if not the letter, of those Marriage Rules.

“It was okay.” He laughed, kissed her again before he slid away from the curb.

“You hated nine out of every ten minutes in there.”

Rule #16: You need to consult your spouse before making any major decision, like inviting your partner to use your Mexican Villa.

Roarke glanced back briefly. “I noticed, yes. A little hollow around the eyes, and not as, well, bouncy as our Ian.”

Eve looked through the glass herself, watched McNab’s shoulders, hips, feet all jiggle at the same time as he worked. “Still got plenty of bounce, but … Anyway, Peabody was trying to put together a couple of days away once this is wrapped, give him some downtime, and I said she should take like five days, and then I offered the villa before I thought about it.”

“You don’t have to think about it. It’s there, and it would give them a good break from the winter and the work.”

“Yeah, but it’s—” She caught herself before she said yours, as that would just piss him off. “It’s probably in the Marriage Rules that you consult.”

Rule #17: You don't keep secrets or hold back information from your spouse.

Rule #17b: If you bugger the rules over one thing, you start buggering them over the next.

(Eve and Roarke talking about how Eve knew Summerset killed Patrick Roarke, but didn’t say anything to Roarke):

“I didn’t have evidence. I don’t have proof.”

“Stop it.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed it. “Stop now.”

“I should’ve told you, but—”

“No. You did exactly the right thing.”

“How? How is it the right thing? You have to be able to trust me. The Marriage Rules—”

A half laugh escaped him.

“Oh, bugger the Marriage Rules over this.”

“If you bugger them over one thing, you start buggering them over the next.”

Because he understood her genuine distress, he pushed away all amusement, shook his head. “The world’s not so black-and-white, as both of us know well. We’ve lived in the gray. You didn’t tell me even though it would’ve unburdened you because it would be a betrayal, and because it may have burdened me. So I’m telling you it doesn’t. And it wouldn’t even if I didn’t know the whole of it now.”

Rule #18: Your spouse should have your back, and you should have theirs.

She considered as she ate. “I want to thank you.” 

“For the farm?” 

“No, Jesus, because that’s just nuts. For … what you said last night. I don’t know, not exactly, why this one’s hit so hard, why it just beat up something in me. I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll deal with worse, maybe tomorrow. Who the hell knows? And I know you’re going to have my back, like I have yours. Marriage Rules.” 

“And I’m such a stickler for rules.” 

“You are—when they’re your rules. Anyway, it wasn’t just that you pushed me to get it out, because that’s in the rules. It was what you said about why you take time away from buying galaxies to work with me, with the squad and Feeney.”

Rule #19: When you have a fight with your spouse, there must be make-up sex after.'

“Good enough. I’m going to finish up a bit of work while you set up your tomorrow. Then, since apparently we had a fight this morning, we need to make up.”

“I thought we already did.”

“You’re the one with the Marriage Rules.” He toasted her before he finished off the whiskey. “There must be a notation on makeup sex.”

“Maybe.”

“If not, write it down,” he advised, and strolled into his office.

Rule #20: Don't stomp on your spouse’s seriously pleased before you even found out what it was.

She could spare time for a walk, she decided, especially since he seemed seriously pleased about something. It was probably part of the Marriage Rules not to stomp on your spouse’s seriously pleased before you even found out what it was.

Rule #21: You are required to worry about your spouse when applicable.

Eve to Roarke: “The Marriage Rules clearly require me to worry about you when applicable.”

Rule #22: Pulling out “Wife Shit” is within the Marriage Rules if you stretched it just enough.

Eve and Feeney: “Jesus, Dallas, just pull out some wife shit.”

“What wife shit?”

“How you know he’s smarter and stronger, and whatever other crap you need to toss in, but how you’re worried, how worrying messes you up. Shit like that, so he does it because he’s worried, and guilty, because you’re worried. Just wife shit.”

It fascinated. “How do you know wife shit?”

“Because I’ve had one more’n half my life, for Christ’s sake. Sheila doesn’t pull out the wife shit regular, and that’s why it works. Every goddamn time.”

Wife shit, Eve considered. It seemed like, maybe, it could run parallel with the Marriage Rules if she stretched it just enough.

Rule #23: Sharing your day.

Eve and Roarke: “You should tell me about your day and stuff.”

“No, I really shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it consisted of meetings, negotiations, progress reports, a small, easily fixable manufacturing glitch out of Cincinnati, a less easily but still fixable data drop in Tokyo, considerable revisions to the Sea and Space Museum on the Olympus Resort, a preview of the remodeled and redesigned Typhoon All-Terrain and other ’62 vehicles, some key staff adjustments in Detroit—and on Vegas II—and so on.”

Rule #24: What we have, we share. The good and the bad of it.

Roarke suggested it should be somewhere in the rules:

“It’s probably in there,” she muttered. Maybe she’d put an asterisk on that line to remove money from it.