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Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category

I have been married a long time - forty-six years. And I have been married all this time to the same woman. Is this an accomplishment? Am I an authority on marriage? I think not. What I am an authority on is my marriage. Even so, I doubt I am aware of all the elements in our relationship, of the changes we have undergone, of the compromises we have made, and of our achievements as a married couple. It may seem strange to use the word "achievement." However, marriage is a relationship that can foster and facilitate growth in a number of areas personal developments, familial development, the development of a home. This is what I have in mind when I refer to the achievements of marriage.

Love is an important aspect of marriage, but it ordinarily is not an achievement except in arranged marriages or marriages of convenience or financial gain. Love usually is, and certainly was for me, a condition for marriage. I won't try to define love. I know I was in love with my wife and she was in love with me. We still are in love with each other, although the form has changed. When we first fell in love, I had a difficult time restraining myself from kissing and fondling her whenever we were together, and we always wanted to be together. Indeed, that's why I married her-so we always could be together. These days the impulse to kiss and fondle her is more restrainable, but it's still there. I suppose someone might say that it was not love in those early days, it was sexual attraction. There was a strong element of sexual attraction in our relationship. However, I have been sexually attracted to women without being in love with them.

We had a lot going for us when we got married. We shared a great many interests-some major, some minor, and all contributing to compatibility. We were both deeply interested in the same professional area. We enjoyed travel and sports. We both loved the theater and had similar reactions to movies, with my wife leaning a bit more to the refined and interpersonally sensitive and I leaning more to the shoot-tern-ups. Despite this bit of sex-typing, our tastes were (and remain) more often similar than different. Of course, we loved children and wanted to have a family.

A related compatibility that was not a factor in our courtship but was a positive factor in the marriage was my wife's interest and skill in cooking and my zest and delight in eating the meals she prepared. I had no idea my bride-to-be was such a wonderful cook. Today we both enjoy dining in fine restaurants, another factor undoubtedly contributing to the longevity of our marriage (although probably not to our individual longevities). However, this was not an initial element in our courtship, since we could not afford fine restaurants. In addition, although I was aware of her beauty, intelligence, and sensitivity, I had little idea of (and, at the time, probably would not have been able to appreciate) the aesthetic sensibilities she would show in decorating our home and looking attractive in inexpensive clothes (all we could afford during the first ten years).

We also began our marriage with some impediments. Our respective families, although loving, were largely sources of problems rather than sources of support. A more fundamental difficulty was our youth and immaturity. I was unable to acknowledge that needs were not being satisfied because we lacked financial resources and my spouse was reluctant to express even modest wants. My view of life required behaving as a good soldier to overcome barriers and frustrations. This, coupled with my self-righteousness, defeated communication and led to spats, emotional outbursts, and a broken record of negative interactions played out in a variety of settings. We sought marriage counseling and individual therapy and finally separated after almost thirty years of marriage. My wife initiated the separation. She took a particularly courageous step in leaving the house, in view of her attachment to home and discomfort with social isolation.

The separation was a shock for me and for her and led to personal growth experiences for both of us. She became more conscious of her needs and better able to effectively articulate them. The impregnable steel shell that made me impervious to some messages, while not shattered, became at least porous. We reconciled after six months.

It took hard work and pain to break down barriers, deepen our understanding of each other, accept our respective failings, and broaden our consciousness. This personal development constitutes for me an important achievement of our marriage. One of the challenges of marriage is for spouses to develop a shared commitment and orientation without sacrificing each other's individuality. Also, for a marriage to work, one partner cannot grow while the other remains suspended in a never changing time warp of habits and biases.

The creation of a caring, interconnected family is another achievement of our marriage. We are fortunate in having thoughtful and accomplished children who are each creating their own families. A third achievement is a home we enjoy and that serves as a sanctuary and place of support as well as a place for entertaining family and friends. A fourth achievement is a network of friends whom we both care for and enjoy.

I think our marriage illustrates in many ways the gratifications afforded and dilemmas posed by the institution of marriage in our contemporary society. The betrothed are typically two individuals who have only superficial knowledge of each other (although they may believe otherwise) and who, while relatively young, make a lifetime commitment to share a home, raise a family, and remain together. They will have little control over most of the pressures, demands, and problems that life experiences inevitably pose.

In addition to coping with unpredictable events in the external world, the spouses need to adjust to each other's idiosyncrasies as they interact daily and as they change. Hopefully the partner will further develop, deepen, and expand their interests and sensibilities.

The marriage that allows for the gratification and support provided by sharing plus personal growth and development for each partner is the marriage we should all strive for. Reaching that goal takes constant work. And work on the part of the marital partners is what is required to make a marriage truly work.

I sit in the restaurant of our favorite museum in
Europe. It is a time of reflection for me and I feel inspired to write. I miss you and I love you.

This is my first trip alone since our marriage, but this trip is different. An old friend is ill and called for help, for me to come and visit. Because you know I love you and am committed to you, you let me go. In between periods of long conversations and intimate discussions, I sightsee. I go to the museums and visit the historic buildings. It is absolutely not the same as doing these things with you.

All of this leads me to think about why it is so wonderful to travel together. We go to have a good time, take a break, learn, and experience. Generally we accomplish all of these ends. Moreover, we always enjoy each other's company and deepen our knowledge of each other. You laugh at me for my elaborate preparations but you enjoy knowing you are cared for. Still, the most important part of traveling together is that we have plain, old-fashioned fun, the warm, constant, having-a-good-time kind of fun. I enjoy having you by my side. I enjoy your presence, your being, kindness, gentleness, humor.

Each of us cares that the other is having a good time, and we share. Together we decide what we most want to see. Then we discover what moves and inspires us. We work in tandem. You drive and I navigate. I plan, you approve and help to execute. And then we have our debriefings. What have you most enjoyed today? What have been the highlights of the trip so far for you? You are delight-able and your delight helps mine blossom.

Yes, sometimes things do not go smoothly.

Sometimes we upset each other the way we might at home, yet you are committed to settling our disagreements so we can get back to enjoying each other's company. And when external circumstances cause part of a trip to be less than excellent, we do not diminish our own good times.

On Sunday my friend was tired and I spent the late afternoon alone and had dinner by myself. Had I been with you, we would have eaten together. We would have taken a long walk to the restaurant. Alone I was hesitant to do so. The streets were deserted and not inviting for a solitary walk. When we are together we make empty streets interesting. We comment on how the smallest urban details help to illuminate a culture. Alone I note them, but without you to share these observations, my delight and interest in what I see is diminished.

So I miss you now. Traveling together is giving and sharing. I will see you soon. I cannot wait.

The parents of this wonderful new human being will never again return to their old relationship, even when the child has grown and left home and they are alone again as they were at the beginning of their marriage. They will move on to a new relationship-a broader, more satisfying one. They are no longer a couple; they have become a family. The baby has added a new dimension to their marriage and a new reason for each of them to exist. Even if they have initial problems  in adjusting to the changes, even if they feel out of touch with each other for a short time, their common love for and enchantment with their child will bring them together again. No one in the world cares as much about their baby as they do; no one else can share their particular, unique experience of parenthood.

New Responsibilities of Parents

Perhaps the most difficult part of the responsibility of caring for a new baby is being on call constantly, twenty-four a day, 168 hours a week, with never a moment off. No other job requires such dedication as that of parenting. Babies don’t eat, sleep, or cry on schedule. You will be called upon to feed or comfort your infant at any  and every hour of the day or night, whether you are asleep, or ill, or occupied with a project of the utmost importance. In short, you will be required to adjust your lifestyle to accommodate the total dependency of your baby. This shift in the focus of your life may be traumatic at first, especially if you have been particularly independent and unencumbered.

Supplying the Basics

The primary responsibilities of parents are to provide their children with food, clothing, and shelter-the basic requirements of human life. In principle, all the most poverty-stricken of new parents can accept those responsibilities with few qualms, because they are the ones they fulfill for themselves. It’s the day to day details of supplying them that may make you feel insecure and far from confident in caring for your infant. You may feel, as some parents do, that while your childbirth education classes have prepared you very well for actually producing a baby, you’ve not had adequate preparation for caring for your child. The all important questions of what, how, when, how often, and why have not been answered to your complete satisfaction. In truth, they cannot be, because every baby and every set of parents is unique. Every family is different from every other, and every individual in every family is different from all the others. Some routines and procedures simply have to be tried out and perhaps discarded before you are comfortable in handling even the most ordinary of your responsibilities to your infant. You may wonder if the trial and error method of mastering a skill is a suitable approach for the serious work of rearing a human being.

In searching for knowledge about how to care for their babies, many parents are apt to be intimidated by “experts,” who may include the baby’s grandparents and next door neighbors as well as pediatricians and psychologists, and to accept as truth any scrap of advice they are given whether or not it “feel” right to them or has been substantiated in their experience. Of course there are times when nothing can be substituted for the knowledgeable orders and advice of experts in the professional fields of medicine, nutrition, and child psychology. But it is important for you, as a new parent, to learn to trust yourself. Remember, there is no right way to do most things involved in child care. You can read, you can take classes, you can question your doctor closely, you can listen to your friends and relatives, but ultimately you must make your own decisions about what is best for your own unique child. And because you know that child better than anyone else in the world, you are far more likely than others to make the best decisions.

Remember, as you make these decisions, to enjoy your baby as you learn to care for him. Try to look at parenting, not as a series of problems to be overcome or even, in the positive language of public relations, as challenges to be met. For a little while at least, let the rest of the world go by as you give yourself up to this new life you have created; appreciate the miracle of every day.

You went looking for yourself. Anyone could find a place, a job, a conversation, but you wanted to find out who you were and just as importantly, you needed to find out who you weren't.

You had met when you were both very young; young enough for it all to seem only mysterious and to have no brutality to it.

You were thirteen, and then, when he turned sixteen, he left to go back home.

Come and visit me, he said. You said you would.

The time finally came and it was, as such things always are, an adventure. The airports were, massive, full of every language, every idea of every place in the world.

The Orthodox man at De Gaulle asked you to pray, but you declined. You were getting closer and the faces began to change and the atmosphere changed with it. The security guards did not smile and they held automatic rifles and small machine guns in their hands and their eyes never seemed to stop scanning the airport terminal, or your face.

As the plane banked over the electric blue of the Mediterranean, the sun was starting to decline, and you looked out the small window and saw the lights of Tel Aviv coming on in sharp glittering rows. The plane leveled out and the pilot came on the intercom to say you were making your final approach. The plane came down and you felt the impact of arrival and people on the plane applauded. They were home.

You had both grown older, if not, up; completely, and there, with the street signs and the voices on the radio, the weight of the heat of a late summer, everything made you feel that you had stepped across a threshold and that a door had closed behind you.

That, he said, pointing towards a small long valley with buildings high up on either side; that's The Valley of the Cross. You looked at the squat brown monastery in the middle of the valley and beyond it to the rows of apartments and houses. It was like that everywhere you turned; the impossibly old, and the impossibly new.

You went up the tallest mountain in the city. Carved into the side were, first, the Roman ruins, then the Crusaders, then the trenches the British had dug all of them like a kind of clock recording centuries instead of hours. At the top, was a mosque and a Coke a Cola stand.

First the grub, he said, laughing, then the good books.

Downstairs, in the crypt below the mosque, there were Orthodox men standing around the tomb, they said, of the Prophet Samuel. They spoke to us with thick New York accents, like characters in a gangster movie from the always receding past.

You climbed to the top of the minaret. The valleys and the Old City and the far mountains rolled out under the haze and waving heat lines rose from the ground like strips of seaweed in a vast ocean.

What do you think? He asked.

You looked around, and history looked back, then it yawned at you and you had to laugh.

You could either find yourself, you said, or get lost in a hurry.

Well, he said, you've got a good guide, so you'll be fine.

He was right.