From Wedding Bells to Wedding Blues
婚禮歡愉化作婚後憂鬱
It was after midnight when Kaitlin Chad Moss, her new husband, Jeremy Moss, and a handful of devoted wedding guests lingered as long as they could before they were politely informed that the celebration was over and it was time to go home.
凱特琳·查德·莫斯，她的新婚丈夫耶利米·莫斯，以及一些死忠的婚禮賓客流連不去，直到被禮貌地告知慶祝活動己然結束，該回家了，而這時已過了午夜。
“That’s when it hit me,” said Kaitlin Moss, 29, who was married in September last year at the Green Valley Ranch, a lodge and events space in Coram, Montana. “I’m never going to have everyone I love in one room like this again. It was hard to accept. I felt sad, and it didn’t go away.”
現年29歲、去年九月在蒙大拿州科拉姆旅館暨活動會館「格林山谷牧場」結婚的凱特琳．莫斯女士說：「就在那一刻我驀然驚覺，我再也不能讓我所愛的人像這樣全部歡聚一堂了。這令人難以接受。我感到悲傷，而且悲傷並未散去。」
Kaitlin Moss broke down that night in front of her girlfriends. “I wish someone had warned me that this was something you could feel. Why is no one talking about this?” said Kaitlin Moss, who lives in Denver.
當天晚上，凱特琳·莫斯在女性友人面前崩潰了。住在丹佛的凱特琳·莫斯說：「真希望事先有人警告我，我可能會有這種感受。為什麼沒人談到這檔事呢？」
Post-wedding sadness is not uncommon among the newly married. Laura Stafford, a professor and director of the Bowling Green State University’s School of Media and Communication, and Allison Scott Gordon, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s Department of Communication, have jointly conducted two studies on depression, specifically concerning newly married women.
婚禮後悲傷在新婚夫婦中並不少見。兩位學者針對新婚女性聯手進行了兩項關於憂鬱症的研究，這兩位學者是鮑史塔福德說：「這些女人是關注的焦點，且籌備一場婚禮占用了很多時間，沒有某種失落是很奇怪的。我們還發現人們關注婚禮甚於婚姻。她們對於目標、作為妻子的角色、關係跟伴侶的選擇，也都存在不確定感。」
“In 2016 we looked at 28 women, half of whom said they felt sad or let down after their wedding,” Stafford said. Last year they interviewed 158 women. Twelve percent of the women interviewed in the second study expressed feelings of depression after being wedded.
史塔福德說：「我們在2016年調查了28名女性，其中一半表示在婚禮後感到悲傷或失落。」他們去年又調查了158名女性，在這第二項研究中，12％受訪女性表示在婚後有憂鬱感。
“These women were the center of attention, and planning a wedding takes up so much of your time, it would be weird to not feel some kind of letdown,” Stafford said. “We also found there was more focus on the wedding than on the marriage. There was also uncertainty about their goals, their role as a wife, their relationship and partner choice.”
史塔福德說：「這些女人是關注的焦點，且籌備一場婚禮占用了很多時間，沒有某種失落是很奇怪的。我們還發現人們關注婚禮甚於婚姻。她們對於目標、作為妻子的角色、關係跟伴侶的選擇，也都存在不確定感。」
The pair are working on a third study where the same 158 women will be interviewed again to see if their moods have changed a year later.
這兩位學者正在進行第三項研究，將再次採訪同一群158名女性，看看一年後她們的心境是否有所改變。
There are many reasons behind the emotional crash. For some, it’s returning to everyday life. For others, it’s the elimination of planning and anticipating such a big celebration or the loss of looking forward to that cultural, life-altering event. Then there’s the diminished attention, social letdown and the pressures and expectations that come with your new life and spouse.
情緒崩潰背後有很多原因。對一些人而言，是因為又回到了平常生活，對另一些人來說，則是因為對於如此盛典的籌畫與期待俱已成為過去，或是失去了對於那個文化性的、改變人生的事件的期待。另外還有不再那麼受到人們注目、社交失落感，以及新的生活和配偶帶來的壓力和期望。
“For most, this kind of sadness is temporary,” said Elizabeth Sloan, a licensed professional counselor in McLean, Virginia, who added that these melancholy feelings generally lessen during the months that follow your wedding. “First talk to other married friends, then talk to your spouse,” she said.
維吉尼亞州麥連郡有執照的專業顧問伊莉莎白．史隆說：「對大多數人來說，這種悲傷是暫時的。」她表示這些憂鬱的情緒通常會在婚後幾個月裡轉淡，「先跟其他已婚朋友談談，再跟你的配偶談談。」
文／Alix Strauss 譯／陳韋廷
標題小玩押頭韻（alliteration）的文字遊戲（bells和blues的b）。Hear wedding bells是認為某人好事將近，注意不加冠詞。Wedded bliss指源自結婚的幸福美滿感，屬於詼諧的講法。
Wedding指結婚儀式，marriage是婚姻狀態。談論結婚這檔事時，通常用get married而非marriage。例如，兩小無猜結婚嫌太早，英文會說：I think they’re too young to get married.而非I think they’re too young for marriage. 「婚姻生活」是married life，不是marriage life。
對某些人來說，婚禮愈是風光浪漫，婚後面對每天開門七件事（returning to everyday life）的情緒崩壞（emotional crash）就更嚴重，crash可用collapse或breakdown替換。
作者使用sadness/ depression/letdown/melancholy等意義大同小異的字來說明post-wedding blues，避免重複。如何面對憂鬱？浪漫主義詩人濟慈（John Keats）的名作Ode on Melancholy（「憂鬱頌」）值得玩味。