Modern Marriage
05 Aug 2009 14 Comments
in book reviews, conversations, media mentions
Like many children of the seventies, my husband and I have both seen our parents divorce and marry new spouses, sometimes more than once. I assume that, like us, there are many other children of divorce who find themselves searching for models of marriage, whether it’s the unconventional (like a parent’s second or third marriage that turns out to be the happiest) or pop-cultural (the Weasleys, the Bartletts, the Ingalls). On the subject of marriage, there were two NYT articles recently that resonated with me: one on the new Nora Ephron movie, Julie and Julia and another, a Modern Love column about a woman who heard the dreaded, “I don’t love you anymore” from her husband, but didn’t let it end their marriage.
First, the piece about Ephron. I didn’t know that she was married to Nicholas Pileggi, author of the books on which Goodfellas and Casino were based, but I had recently read her novel Heartburn
The “decades” question also gets addressed in Laura Munson’s “Modern Love” column, where her husband of two decades and two children turns to her and says, “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.” Even just the thought of my husband saying those words to me is like a sharp knife, but Munson reacts with unbelievable calm and continues to do so, allowing her husband to essentially act like a bratty teenager for the next six months until he feels ready and reconciled to being part of the family again.
I think it would be easy to dismiss her account– there’s some squishy spiritual woo-woo action that is a little tough to take for the cynical among us, and the column makes no mention of infidelity, which is often around the corner in these situations. But when Munson asks her husband, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?” and he responds with disbelief, I started to see her point a little more. My husband and I, an extrovert married to an introvert, long ago accepted that we both need breaks, time away to be completely alone or to be with friends or to pursue interests that have nothing to do with our family life. And while six months is quite a break, the idea of letting there be spaces in your togetherness, to grow not in each other’s shadow is valid too. If her husband was truly seeking a break, time to indulge himself in behavior that might seem selfish but that helped him feel more committed to their family, then Munson seems validated in her side of things. But the bravery of her position, when she had no idea how it would turn out or what might be beneath it all, is harder for me to envision. Perhaps it’s the divorce legacy again, or my own personality, or a lack of the requisite spiritual faith, I’m not sure.
Maybe it’s just me, but I can see both these ideas, though less sexy than lingerie and trickier than more traditional roles, being useful and fruitful for anyone trying to negotiate the modern marriage.
Aug 05, 2009 @ 07:22:14
That column sounds so… bizarre. But thanks for the link, I’m off to read it!
Aug 05, 2009 @ 07:42:44
It is kind of bizarre, and like I said, I don’t know that I could ever do what she did. But I think there’s a takeaway in there about marriage anyway, you know?
Aug 06, 2009 @ 07:02:17
Interesting post and links. As I was reading Munson’s column, I kept seeing parallels to Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, a book about which I have profoundly conflicted feelings.
Your discussion is particularly poignant for me because I found out just this morning that a friend of mine from grad school, whose wedding I attended 10 or so years ago, is now divorced because her husband cheated on her and now refuses to speak to her except through text messages. I’ve been really unsettled by this news all day, thinking about how couples do or don’t nurture their relationships. Well, not relationships in the abstract so much as MY relationship! Food for thought.
Aug 06, 2009 @ 08:50:10
Only through texting! That seems gratuitously cruel. We’ve gone to a ridiculous amount of weddings since we got married, and so far only one couple has split up, but it gives me shivers to think of any of the rest following suit…
My spouse and I (he needs a good pseudonym, I think) have weathered a fair amount of storms so far, but I would like to think about fair-weather nourishment too. Like the Ephron article says, we see a lot more culturally about the conflicts than we do the sunnier side.
Aug 07, 2009 @ 07:32:45
At our house, I occasionally have to have “Tammy Time”…time just for me. The way our work schedules are, my husband gets his while we are all at school, so he understands when I start telling I am jealous of his quiet time!
Don’t know that I would be as gracious as the lady in the article, though! Hhuumm, such a unique perspective…
Aug 07, 2009 @ 08:14:04
The one upside so far of my husband being in law school is that I get dedicated hours of quiet time. Of course, it’s four nights a week, and by the end of the second night, I’m wishing he was home. The constant push-pull of family and married life.
“Gracious” is an interesting word….
Aug 07, 2009 @ 19:19:47
I am looking forward to seeing the movie even more, now and that column is very interesting. My husband and I have, on the one hand, one of those stormy, passionate attractions that are not particularly stable or happy-making if they are all you’ve got, but, on the other hand, a deep devotion to raising these wonderful kids together and a joy in sharing it. The two balance each other out very well, I think, but I sometimes wonder if we will be able to find another such deeply satisfying mutual goal once the kids are grown to balance out our passionate sides. I can’t really imagine us without the kids at this juncture. It will be interesting.
Aug 08, 2009 @ 03:45:39
LSM, I think the question of passion vs. stability in marriages is certainly one for the ages, and it’s a very interesting wrinkle to think about whether devotion can balance a more tempestuous side. Some partnerships can’t function without that kind of storminess, and so it “just” seems like a question of keeping that ballast once the kids are grown. Verrrrrry interesting
.
Aug 09, 2009 @ 22:37:47
I read that article too, and many (surely not all by now) of the slew of comments it inspired. There was a lot of admiration for the author, but also a fair amount of skepticism and dislike for what some saw as her passive aggressive/martyred stance.
A few people noticed the part that stuck out for me: she gave herself a six-month deadline. She wasn’t prepared to keep her “I don’t buy it”/”what can we do to accommodate your needs” position forever; if her husband hadn’t come back to the family after six months (in fact, it took only four months), she would do something else (start divorce proceedings, I guess; or maybe therapy, or just something different.) She was paying attention to her own needs and capabilities, not just her husband’s.
The other part I took inspiration from, and that informed her stance, was that she had recently decided to take 100% responsibility for her own happiness. That phrase resonated with me and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, especially in view of all the job angst I’ve been going through. What if, instead of gnashing my teeth and willing a better job to come up, something over which I have very little control, I took 100% responsibility for my own happiness, right now? Doesn’t mean I won’t apply and do my best when something is posted, but that I won’t give one or two organizations, which by definition don’t have my best interests as one of their priorities, that kind of power over my own internal state. It’s kind of woo-woo but I’m finding it helpful.
Aug 09, 2009 @ 22:58:12
Elswhere, I was trying to describe it to a friend of mine, and she thought the six-month deadline was important too, but we both thought also that it was crucial that her husband didn’t know there was a deadline, which goes along with your thread on paying attention to her own needs, not just his.
I went through similar job angst when I decided to quit adjuncting, which was a disappointment, I think, to my mentors/boss and also a little bit to myself. But was I really disappointed with my choice? Absolutely not– I know it was the right decision for me. So why let some phantom disappointing figures affect me? Yes, woo-woo, but there’s a reason that woo-woo can be so compelling. We can only affect our own actions and reactions, not those of others, whether the realm of marriage or careers, and all that jazz.
Aug 09, 2009 @ 23:15:27
Oh, absolutely– if her husband had known there was a deadline, it would have been a threat hanging over him, and that would have affected how they both reacted. She had to decide for herself what she could deal with, and keep it to herself. The really hard part, I’m thinking, would have been if she’d hit that six-month deadline: did she know what she’d do then?
Aug 09, 2009 @ 23:24:13
That is certainly the big question– the whole exercise was definitely a tightrope act, and though she was validated, what if she hadn’t been? I think she would answer that she would still know that she had acted in the best interests of everyone involved, and given him every fair chance she could, which is an admirable goal too.