The New York Times last week ran a great story by Pamela Paul describing the many couples who choose not to live together, but to stay married. These couples include Warren Buffet and his wife (who remained married for 27 years after separation and despite his long term relationship with another woman). The article raises all the questions you face in deciding to divorce – the hassle and expense of divorce vs. the confusion and financial risk of staying married to someone you no longer share a life with vs. the benefits of remaining married (health insurance coverage, for one). Despite a full-on article about this potential path in the NY Times, this is still a rare choice. When a marriage or long term relationship ends, almost always there is one partner who leaves and one who is left. The “leaver” is anxious to start anew. In fact, the article seems mostly to describe couples who have been together and raised a family so that the press to chart a new course in their lives may not be as pressing. In any event, its a well written piece and thought provoking.
Putt Like the Pros – Don’t Get Fat
I just got interested in golf…at 59. My lovely 17 year old daughter has, for years, gauged an activity by whether it was “fun.” That’s a big word for her, and judging by the kind of person she has turned out to be, I’d say “fun” is good.
Golf is fun. Funfunfunfun. Of course, when the day comes that I care how many strokes it takes me to get from the tee to sinking the ball into the cup, I’ll maybe change my tune. Yet, for now, just getting the ball up the hole, to the green and into the cup is an accomplishment. My wife and I just saw the most recent Harry Potter movie. Our family has read and listened to these wonderful books since the first. On the way out of the most recent movie I leaned into my wife’s ear and said, “This installment…Just moving the ball down the course.” Yes, golf imagery is seeping into my discourse.
So I just went on line to see what websites had to say about putting, which remains for me a dark art. The site I hit had a side-bar ad showing a very unattractive, exposed belly (actually grabbed to accentuate the fat) and beside it the flat result of…something. Obey the rule is all I could garner. For not the first time I thought, “What a shame.” Our culture pushes, presses, shoves us into desire for no fat, six pack abs, tight buns – while seducing us with fat laden meals that taste great and convert themselves into the handfuls that web ads use as a cudgel to sell something that will give us a fabulous body. There is cruelty in our society that masquerades as advertising or culture.
I have yet to see an ad for integrity, courage in day-to-day living or just plain satisfaction with our lives.
When Divorcing Folks Don’t Have to Get Divorced
Over the last year, I have felt my practice moving away from divorce law and toward helping people maintain their relationships. I began to realize that the great majority of couples I help in mediation did not have to get divorced. (Now that’s a bit more complicated than this simple statement suggests, because by the time they go to a lawyer or divorce mediation, one of them, at least, has withdrawn from the marriage. For them the marriage is over and any effort to get them to change their mind will just be futile –more on that in another post.) Still, had these poor stressed and wounded people gotten some help on their relationship before the threshold to dissolution had been crossed, a relationship felt to be beyond repair could rise from the ashes. John Gottman, Ph.D. famously observed that studies suggest that, on average, couples wait six years after they know there are serious problems with their relationship, to see a counselor. That’s why any couples counselor has got to expect people to be hurt, angry, polarized and emotionally reactive when they first come in. Yet conflict and pain – even that which has endured for a few years – need not bring hopelessness. I have seen people re-establish connections and heal old wounds. It’s just a shame that so many couples I have worked with in the divorce arena never got that help in time.
When Is It Time to Let Go?
I attended a wonderful conference on brief therapy a couple of years ago and concentrated on the folks who were presenting about marital/couples therapy. Thus inspired, I had dinner with an old friend and his second wife (also, now, a dear friend). Their union was very connected and sweet, and definitely had benefited from years of work. (They say a good marriage is work and whoever “they” are, you’d best believe them.) I had listened to my friend describe his first marriage and a mismatch which had produced his beloved daughter. The way he described the relationship, I had to come away with the belief that it was a good thing he had gotten divorce. So over dinner, I regaled him with my new-found commitment to the idea that any marriage can be saved and that divorce is an avoidable trauma – necessary only in cases of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual). My dear friend looked at me like I was nuts. He assured me that his first marriage would have resulted in years of despair for (probably) his wife and (certainly) for him. They were young. They were mis-matched.
In my years of helping people disentangle from painful marriages, I know very well that for one partner, the time comes that their emotional commitment to the marriage is simply gone. At some point there is no reviving a person’s commitment to a marriage. That person knows that the marriage is over in their heart. It is a very painful truth.
While it is definitely possible to stop this erosion of emotional commitment to a marriage before that line is crossed – once that last step is taken my observation from years of working with divorcing people is – there’s not going back. Sadly – wrenchingly – it’s over. There comes a time when our energies need to shift from holding onto a marriage that has emotionally ended for one person to recovering emotionally from the grief and loss of this transition and finding a new path that will, over time, bring fulfillment and love.
The Marital Dance of Conflict
Our fights sometimes have the feel of a couple of siblings in the back of the car on an endless road trip. “Johnny, Susie, stop fighting!” The inevitable response is something like: Susie – “He hit me first!” Johnnie – “I did not! She kicked me.” Susie – “That’s because he took my pencil.” Johnny – “Did not!” Susie – “Did too!” Etc. Now this is not to say that the hurt and anger we feel when we are locked in painful conflict with our partner is child-like or immature. Quite the contrary – it seems to go to the core of who we are sometimes. That’s not the point here. If you look at the above scene, you’ll see a circular argument in which each person believes the other person started it…that the other person is the cause of the distress. Of course, the other person thinks that it started with you. In law, partners who are locked into this conflict will go and hire lawyers, who in turn will try to convince a judge that their side is right and the cause of the problem is the other person. I promise you, that in every case that a judge says one person is the cause of the problem, that decision will never, ever, ever convince the other disputant. He or she will just feel screwed – unheard – misunderstood. For good reason, too, because our ongoing conflicts are ultimately circular in causation. We ultimately react to the other person who ultimately reacts to us. By the time the circle is joined, the conflict has a life of its own and the start is about as obscure as trying to find the missing link in the fog of antiquity. The key isn’t who is right. Rather the key is, how can we disengage from this cycle and stop hurting each other and get back on track. Helping with this often difficult task is, by the way, one of the great services a skilled marital therapist can provide.
Staying Out of Court
There really is no such thing as “your day in court.” The desire (or fantasy) that if only we had a chance to tell our story, a judge would understand the justice of our cause and the right outcome will result. I say to those people, “Forget about it.” First of all, if there are two people in a legal dispute, both of them feel that justice is on their side. The folks in the robes making the decision are going to take the argument of the other person very seriously. For years I have heard people in courthouse hallways after their day in court stunned at the decision. Sometimes they are shocked because they are so polarized from the other person that they can’t imagine anyone taking their spouse seriously. Other times, they lose in court because the judicial officer was overworked, impatient, biased, irritated at some inconsequential thing they or their lawyer did or simply weren’t paying attention. Many hearings in divorce are early in a case and seem over before they begin. You only get to tell your story in 20 pages and your lawyer only gets to talk for 5 minutes. Next time you opt for having a court decide your future, rather than sitting down with your spouse and a neutral mediator, you may want to think again.
Divorce as a Process Over Time
Divorce is a process over time. It’s not an event. Many experts who have studied the divorce process believe that to fully recover from the divorce and see the world through truly renewed eyes may take as much as two years. Abigail Trafford, in her excellent Crazy Time, believes that the worst part of the process occurs in the 6-month period after separation. That’s when people may feel that their world is completely out of control. However, once we get through that wretched stage, while the going is a bit easier, it will still take a long time to: See ourselves as truly separate from our spouse; Be able to even think about committing to another relationship; Stop ruminating about the marriage – what you did wrong, what they did wrong; No longer feel triggered by what our spouse does; Actually accept the notion of our spouse with another partner; Honestly feel happy again. I think the most important message that a divorcing or depressed person can receive is that there will come a time when you will feel good again. It won’t happen tomorrow, next week or even next month – but it will happen in due course. Statements like that may be no more than seeds planted in another’s mind and heart. They will germinate in their own time. It may be the greatest gift we, living outside the world of the suffering, as we do, can offer the dispirited.
Depression and Marriage
Lots of marriages have run aground over the depression of one of the partners. Most frequently, it has been the man. I think we have a mistaken assumption that depression means that someone doesn’t get out of bed or is basically non-functional. Most people who are depressed have families, go to work and generally do what they gotta do. It’s just that the color is drained from their lives. Depressed people don’t find enjoyment in the things that used to please them. In the face of suggestions about change, their common response is a variant of “What difference does it make?” While you may be successful in your job, this task uses up about all of your reserves of energy. You feel there’s nothing left when you come home. Certainly not for dealing with the challenges that go along with maintaining a strong relationship. The partner of the depressed person feels alone. Any negative comment directed at the depressed spouse is taken in deeply by the depressed mind as a global criticism and they withdraw. The good news is that treatment approaches for depression abound. A marriage doesn’t have to end over one spouse’s depression. The approaches of David Burns, Aaron Beck, Michael Yapko and Martin Seligman all point the way out of the (falsely) inescapable darkness of depression. Finding the works of any of these people on Amazon cannot steer you wrong.
Our Families of Origin
We sat around with some good friends this past weekend and, perhaps inspired by the wine, one of us looked at our neighbor and said, “What words or phrases would you use to describe your mother?” There were 3 women and 2 men. We went around the circle and each of us uncovered our little nuggets – the first words that came to mind. Here in this group of fairly satisfied, positive people in their 50’s, the power of our parents in our psyches rose up luminous. Some associations were painful – “angry” “frustrated” – others were romantic – “brilliant” “loving” – but none were flat. “Mother” and “Father” have the capacity to evoke our deepest feelings, well into middle age and (I’m guessing) beyond. Handling all that in therapy is interesting and tricky. Truly our families of origin have an enormous molding influence on our lives, but as a wise friend likes to say, “It’s fine to look at that past, just don’t stare.” I like that one. I think therapists need to carefully balance acknowledgment of the past that brings a hurting person into our office, with a deep appreciation (honestly conveyed) of its impact – yet at the same time our lives are most definitely in the present and it will be in the future. People who come to us and are hurting are experiencing a painful present and if we are able to work well together, a positive, productive, less painful future is the goal. I heard a therapist say this weekend that people come in oftentimes with the attitude, “I will not be happy until my parents were nicer to me as a child.” The power of this past can never be underappreciated. Yet dwelling on this past in the hope, somehow, of understanding something that will set us free, I believe, is like trying to get some sunshine by heading for the Canadian North in December. Ain’t going to happen. Freedom comes in mastering our lives today – in whatever form that takes for each of us.
Pleasure in the Little Things
Tonight I got to hang with my 16 year old daughter. We had leftovers, hung out for about a half hour and then went our separate ways. She’s doing her homework and I’m here typing this. Her mom’s with a good friend who fell a month ago and broke her arm so bad that a piece of the bone was found a couple weeks later in the flower bed. I’m serious. I’ve heard of bone meal fertilizer, but I think that’s taking gardening too far. Anyway, she is in recovery, but still needs a good friend’s help and TLC and that’s where my love is tonight. My girl is a teenager so “Mum” is definitely the word. She knows this drives me nuts – I took her to the bookstore yesterday and I asked, “What are you getting?” and she replied devilishly, “A book.” Well thanks a lot for the deep info. I log onto the online news and I see that the AIG execs are trying to use our dollars for multimillion dollar bonuses. Our country’s drive for more, bigger, richer is what drove us to the current brink and I think it arises in part from our collective failure to embrace the pleasure in the little things. They’re really not so little. To hang out with my beautiful child tonight and engage in a 20 minute “nothing much” conversation over leftovers was very sweet. Asking a question and getting a real answer feels like hitting a vein of gold.