Spoiler Alert: I have only thus far watched the first season of Friday Night Lights, and this article does reveal some plot points from that season. 

The American relationship to marriage is like the American relationship to Sunday school (or whichever school you were dragged to by your earlobe): We consider it sacred, and we consider it suffering. At least, if TV is to be believed. 

All of this is disheartening if, like me, you're about to do the deed... I mean, tie the knot. 

Most married couples on television exist in a predominantly antagonistic relationship, in which the wife is constantly interfering with husband's "guy time" and dragging husband to baby showers, while husband is belching in front of dinner guests and forgetting wife's birthday. Wife and husband bicker incessently. The only "sex" ever witnessed between the two is makeup "sex," which looks like something a Care Bear would do to a lukemia patient.  Whenever the kids walk in on this G-rated sex, they report it as gross and disturbing.

Not so with the adult stars of Friday Night Lights, coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami. Even though Lights obeys the laws of primetime television, meaning nothing graphic, the Taylor's marriage is steamy, as in Tami Taylor informing Eric Taylor that she was finally pregnant gave me a boner (it's all in the delivery). There's nothing over-the-top about Kyle Chandler or Connie Britton's acting -- nothing out of the ordinary, either -- but their marriage comes across as steamy. They bicker and flub, sure, but they also talk to each other like they remember why they tied the knot in the first place -- so that they could jump each other's bones after breakfast. 

Part of it's the little touches. After a tough night, Eric embraces Tami from behind. In the scene, they console eachother. Throughout the scene, a strand of Tami's blond hair is stuck in Eric's mouth. This is the kind of intimacy only achieved through a long-term relationship. 

But what Lights portrays so effectively -- and what most television seems to gloss over -- is the fact that the chores of everyday life can be sexy when you share them with a partner. Allow me to invoke a bit of the ol' performance studies background here: We can say one thing while meaning another. Practically speaking, this means we can discuss taxes while playing footsie. When Eric and Tami argue -- for example, when Eric neglects to inform Tami that she has to plan a large party for the football team -- there's an undercurrent of playfulness, and also the sense that their argument is in fact charging their sexual batteries, so to speak. In part this is simply the way they act, but the script constantly reminds us that in marriage there is usually less at stake. You're not trying to impress, and so you can, if you choose, manipulate unpleasent events into pleasurable ones. In a good marriage, there's space for innovation and transformation.

 It also helps that the Taylors' daughter, Julie, doesn't incessently express dismay and disgust at everything her parents do. Yes, it's true real-life teenagers express these things, but one gets the sense we're conditioned to be repulsed by our parents as much as we are to love them. I don't mean to imply everyone has such a relationship, but is it really so off-putting to just consider our parents people, especially once that age gap narrows a bit?

There's a line in the first season finale that really caught my attention. It's the kind of thing you don't hear on television often. I'm going to paraphrase, as I don't have the episode in front of me: 

"Honey, we've used this marriage to create the space for each other's dreams." 

Marriage doesn't have to be a struggle. It can be a tool that you use to stay young, live your dreams, and have buckets full of sex. 

At least, that's the plan.