You know you're unhappily married when...

Marriage, something of which many of us yearn for.  To find that soul-mate of ours and to live happily ever after.  We see the ideologies and joys of marriage in movies we watch, or in books we read.  But there is one particular story that takes the concept of marriage and sticks it in the grinder.  That story: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof revolves around the lives of several married couples: Brick and Maggie Pollit, Big Daddy and Big Mama.  From the male character's perspective, they are far from happily married.  On the contrary, Brick and Big Daddy cannot stand their wives.  Brick, who's clearly an excessive drinker, does not hold back his true feelings for Maggie, often stating that he can't stand her even when she is in the same room.  The weirdest part about their marriage is that their wives, despite the dreadful treatment and verbal abuse they receive by their significant others, will still hold on to whatever they have left in their relationship.  When Brick tells Maggie, "I hate you," she puts a smile on and says "You don't mean that." as if his statement was all in good humor.  This act of denial, I believe can be comparable to real life marriages.  As human beings, it is natural to want to hold on to a member of the family, despite how awful the relationship is.  Many people also get married just to get married, being that it is a huge expectation in American culture.  This, I believe, is the result of many failed marriages.  Most people get married on the motive so they won't die alone, even though they may not care too much about that particular person.  So maybe that's why Brick married Maggie, because it was expected of him, not because he yearned for her.  Or perhaps, as the book so discretely points out, that he did in fact have homosexual feelings for Skipper, his good friend who recently passed away.  The reason Brick and Maggie's marriage had failed remains a mystery, and sometimes, the motive for people in real life getting married is a mystery.