Falling in Love with Anyone

The New York Times' "Modern Love" column of January 9, "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This," garnered more than 5.2 million online visits, 365,000 "Shares" on Facebook, and 745 comments. A reader even set up the fall-in-love procedure as a game on a website. People are desperate for love.

Writer Mandy Len Catron successfully tried "a Cupid-like technique to help two strangers fall in love," a series of 36 personal questions a pair asks each other, developed two decades ago by psychologist Arthur Aron. The process culminates in a four-minute eyeball-to eyeball stare-down. After a 45-minute interchange and gazing through the windows of the soul, the couple feels in sync.

Mandy Len Catron's take-away lesson: By building closeness through introspective communication, "it's possible--simple, even--to generate trust and intimacy, the feelings love needs to thrive."

If it's "simple, even" to create trust and intimacy, wouldn't it be even simpler to rekindle the same feelings, once entrenched and now faded? To re-fall in love, and avoid divorce?

Two married people drifting apart emotionally could take only a single hour answering 36 questions to steer themselves back together. With such an easy formula for closeness, why wouldn't every estranged couple give it a try? Revealing feelings is a lot less traumatic than moving out; a lot less costly than court; a lot less acrimonious than deciding custody.

Here's why not: willingness. Or lack thereof.

Willingness is a choice, of course. And certainly people have justifiable reasons to refuse. Justifiable, but often sadly selfish.

Perhaps withdrawing is the culmination of years of small slights, hurting comments or unfair expectations. And certainly there are times when a spouse feels so betrayed she can't bear the offender. (Divorce is indeed necessary in some cases.) But even after resentment and anger replace a chunk of original affection, a couple can still decide to set the bad stuff aside in order to choose closeness.

But few people now learn to put others ahead of themselves. The concept of self-sacrifice has abysmally low ratings.

Still, most who enter marriage claim intentions of "forever," and want the relationship to work (as long as it satisfies). A functioning, pleasurable, life-enhancing relationship for both partners is the prize--but it requires willingness to put others ahead of yourself.

Stubbornness is selfishness--and keeps too many partners from deciding to give in to the other. The 36 questions shift the focus. How can you stay estranged when you're telling your partner personal insights like your secret hunch about how you'll die? About why you haven't accomplished what you've dreamed of doing? About your feelings regarding your mother?

In the exercise, moving from your deepest interior life into questions focusing on the other cements the connection. "If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know." The process climaxes with question 36: "Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen."

Why are these 36 questions so effective at producing love between strangers (and non-strangers, too)? Because embedded in the questioning is a course on communicating and bonding. The questions require looking inward about memories, emotions and desires (ie one's past, present and future).

They require forming these thoughts into cogent words, phrases and paragraphs--expressing one's interior--and checking to see that the receiver understood. This involves offering oneself to the other, becoming vulnerable; when both do this they form a relationship combining the two individuals.

The entire process rests on a bond and a goal--a commitment (bond) to work together to connect, "to fall in love with anyone" (goal).

That's marriage: A bond that supersedes a declaration, and an ongoing goal. Everyone knows how tough it is to undo the legal contract; neglect alone can dissolve the emotional bond. But few articulate that the goal, called by the 36 questions game "falling in love with anyone," must be pursued by daily choices placing the spouse, and the relationship, first.

The goal of marriage is continuing to fall in love, every day, every moment, with "anyone," the person you've got sitting in front of you, the person you may know better than all others, and still not yet know because he changes all the time. Understanding those changes brings closeness, the substance of love, and all you have to do is choose to keep asking the questions. And gazing into each others' eyes.

(Dedicated to the love of my life, as we celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary January 27, 2015.)  The 36 questions can be found here.

Wife Keeps her Name at Marriage--and Other Ways to Get Respect

An article last week in in the New York Times argued every-which-way about changing or retaining names at marriage. It provoked a huge response, because the central issue isn't really about keeping a name, but retaining respect as an individual.

The piece mainly described women's dilemmas and choices, noting that men haven't rushed to claim their wives' names. A Lesbian couple made their own mashup: Ms. Rothman and Ms. Gerkin became the Gerkmans. (Seems odd; classmates of any future children could taunt "Jerk-Man!" and their choice includes "man" when neither partner is one.)

"Third wave" feminists, the now-marrying generation, often take their husbands' names, even though their own mothers kept their original names out of conviction. The older moms seem disappointed when daughters don't follow their examples, but one youth suggested, “Your generation did all the work, now we can go back to having our husbands’ names.”

One hundred twenty comments, almost all by women, reveal the passion this issue still evokes. The majority of writers insisted that keeping their names preserved their identities, and posed no difficulties. But awkward stories threaded through the rest, bemoaning confused contexts, hyphenated horrors and attacks for choosing the traditional path.

One couple avoided the entire his/hers issue by making up a euphonious Tolkein-esque name and both changing to it in court.

Now that marriage is optional, divorce ubiquitous and unmarried parenthood acceptable, what's the big deal? The crux of the passion is a need for respect as an individual. For many nowadays, taking another person's name feels like a surrender of one's persona, a loss of the unique individuality established and nurtured throughout life.

I think people should be called by whatever they prefer. More crucial for engendering respect than a name, however, is title. "Dr.," "Ms.," "Mr.," and even "Miss" or "Mrs.," if desired, should precede whatever name someone uses, because titles confer respect.

Graffiti, foul language in public (and in media), and pushy drivers all reflect the same decrease in respect for others that dropping titles demonstrates. It's a societal malaise--haven't you noticed it?

Lack of respect begins when a youngster's allowed to address adults casually, by their first names, teaching him there's no difference between children and elders. When a well-meaning teacher tries to "get close" to his charges by going by his first name, students learn that they and the teacher share similar status; children become elevated and the teacher loses ground. The snot-nosed kid gets snotty because nobody's ever superior to him; no one else's position or needs trump his own. Self-esteem's great until it destroys deference to anyone else.

When a store salesperson calls me by my first name, I'm unpleasantly surprised, because the context dictates that he cater to me. A doctor should address her patient as Mr. or Ms., and a child should use those titles for neighbors, because of something becoming startlingly rare: common courtesy. Courtesy is at root respect for others.

Respect is the entire point, the nexus of name-passion.

Feminists want acclaim for their own accomplishments, not as extensions of someone else. They'll get it no matter the last name if we insist upon courtesy and respect for every individual in every circumstance. Titles are one small and perhaps superficial means to remind all present to recognize and honor others. The secondary results might be less inclination to vandalize others' property, cut in when in traffic, and dull sensitivity to politeness with public swearing.

As one of those earlier-wave feminists, I thought it dumb that tradition saw wives as
husband-extensions--and then I fell in love with someone I was proud to extend. More precisely, I was honored that this particular man wanted me to share his future, and delighted we could create our own family united under a single moniker. Suddenly it didn't bother me anymore that I would "lose" my name, because in marrying, I was entering a new phase, as a partner in a new enterprise, the adventure combining my husband and me.

This is the key to what I believe is the value of marriage, and a couple sharing a single last name simply symbolizes it: the whole of the two individuals creates something that is different from, and better than, what each person can be alone.

Each individual deserves respect. But so does the entity of a family, the commitment of two people to each other. If that universal respect was restored, perhaps more people would guard and protect their marriages. And if problems arose, they might work to overcome them, rather than divorce, hurting so many others, and destroying the history and combination they've built.

There's No Such Thing as a "Good Divorce"

The cover story in our local Seattle Times Sunday magazine a few weeks ago was headlined "The Good Divorce." I was pretty incredulous after reading the story about this family who now can sit around calmly with his re-marriage, her-remarriage, their kids and his new baby. Now they're just peachy, and experts agree. But my reaction to the article was mild compared to several friends'.

A 40-year-old never-married woman shook the magazine in my face, shrieking, "I am so mad about this story!" A 60-something friend whose husband unexpectedly left one night kept muttering, "No. There's no such thing as a good divorce."

Constance Ahrons, who coined the phrase “good divorce,” thinks split families should be called “binuclear” and meld seamlessly, sans stigma, into our social fabric. The message seems simple: With the right attitude, divorce can relatively soon lead to a pleasant mélange of happily combined relatives.  But that wasn’t what I saw in my years counseling divorcing couples, and after writing The Case Against Divorce.

Yet a year post-divorce, most claim they’re stronger, better, wiser, and smarter, spurred by the split to growth and new directions.  So why not “good divorce”?

Heartache, pulling away, financial loss and time detangling inevitably bring irreparable setback.  Lots of spouses simply get dumped, with no recourse; 80% of US divorces “are unilateral, rather than truly mutual decisions,” notes researcher Maggie Gallagher. Still, healthy people wade through the hurt and make the best of the situation.

That doesn’t ameliorate the damage done. Divorce necessitates selfishness, hardening  one’s character. Children never have a say in their parents’ parting, becoming collateral damage dismissed with the dubious phrase, “kids are resilient.”  Judith Wallerstein, whose landmark 25-year study of divorced families convinced her of its ongoing harm, found that “by necessity, many of these so-called resilient children forfeited their own childhoods as they took responsibility for themselves, their troubled, overworked parents; and their siblings.” Trauma peaks in adulthood, she cautions, retarding love, sexual intimacy and commitment. Though some kids see why their parents split, all of them wish Mom and Dad could once again love each other and stay together.

Divorce mars the lives of loving in-laws, and unsettles otherwise content bystanders; it unsteadies society, de-stabilizes neighborhoods, and brings awkwardness and discomfort in social encounters.

Sure, they’ll survive, but everyone affected would rather dodge the agony.

 A “culture of divorce” grew as new technologies gave us feel-good instant gratification, demoting the virtues of duty and obligation. Americans’ attention span shrank from reading tomes to watching TV shows to three-minute YouTube videos—and now to 10 seconds of disappearing SnapChat.

 Our notion of commitment  became shorter, too. Marriage pledges are now really “hopes,” easily revised by a Facebook status change. The New York Times’ “Vows” page recently began a new column called “Unhitched,” each week highlighting one couple’s estrangement and divorce.

 Stripped of connection to gender or paternity, marriage becomes optional. Latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control reveal that 48% of women cohabited with a partner as a first union; the overall out-of-wedlock birth rate topped 40% in 2011. With men’s age at first marriage up to 27, and divorce devoid of stigma, we now joke that the only people enthusiastic about legalizing their relationships are homosexuals and priests.

Years ago, tempted cartoon characters paused to consider the coaxing of an angel perched on their right shoulder and a devil on their left. The conscience angel urged "Do your duty!  Do what is moral and right! Defer gratification; you know what you ought to do" and the self-centric devil whispered "Do what feels good! Follow your heart! Get what you want, right now!"

 Granted, not all marriages can survive, like the hopeless cases where an abusive or addicted spouse won't get help, or when one partner decamps. Ongoing cruelty, anger or restriction can force their target out. To overcome problems, both partners must want to stay married, and see some potential for good; the hitch is that our non-judgmental culture greases their paths out the door.

 

 I learned two lessons counseling countless divorcing couples. First, a rejected mate usually requires at least half as long as the marriage to recover. Second, recovery occurs not when a spouse “feels good" about the former mate, but when she’s indifferent—a difficult goal if you’re entwined with new partners, shared children and ongoing “good divorce” accoutrements.

 Our accept-it-all milieu grants so much leeway for individual happiness that relationships have no backbone with which to stand. Friends think they’re helping by standing back when they fall. Religious and social communities refuse to shame jerks who behave badly. The little devil perched on society's slumping shoulder gloats, “You can have a good divorce! Do what you want, and do it now!” That angel guy’s so old-school he can’t even text his apologies to the kids.

Divorce Rates Slide, but Marriage Has a New Message

Dr. Judith Wallerstein

While reading the obituary for Judith S. Wallerstein, a psychologist who rankled feminists 20 years ago with her findings that divorce is permanently traumatic for children, I recalled her influence on my own work as a psychologist. I'd cited her longitudinal study that followed children of divorce for 25 years in my own book, The Case Against Divorce, as part of my argument that the consequences of a split are so dire that in most cases, it's far better to work to heal rifts and stay together. I called divorce "a cure far worse than the disease."

Since my book came out many years ago (and it's still selling in paperback), divorce rates have dropped considerably.  While it's been a pernicious myth that the divorce rate was ever 50% (even at its peak in 1981, the rate was about 25% for first marriages), Census Bureau statistics show that divorce per 1,000 population has steadily declined--plunging from a high of 5.3 in 1981, to 4.7 in 1990, 4.1 in 2000--and in the latest figures (2009), down to 3.1. That's a considerable drop, though the marriage rate has also declined, from 9.8 per 1,000 population in 1990 to 6.9 per 1,000 in 2009.  (Part of that is because older cohorts were larger and married younger.)

As divorce popularity declined, Judith Wallerstein shifted her stance, from warning about divorce impact to structuring the process to minimize damage to children.  I was a bit surprised at this, since I'd considered her an ally in a broader effort to strengthen marriage, imbuing it with a gravitas beyond its function as a love conduit for a couple. But she told the New York Times that when women credited her for their decisions to stay married, "I don't feel, 'Oh, my God, that's wonderul, one more marriage saved.' Maybe it was the wrong marriage."

In her 1989 book Second Chances, the 10-year follow-up of 60 divorced families (with 131 children) in her California Children of Divorce research project, Dr. Wallerstein wrote, "When people ask if they should stay married for the sake of the children, I have to say, 'Of course not.'"

That was a bit different from my response, which would be "Don't stay in your bad marriage for the sake of the children, but they're a great reason to work to make it good." My book talked about all the awful consequences of divorce--to the individuals, their families and friends, as well as the children--and also the flip side, the benefits and joys of restoring and improving a relationship that already has a foundation in time and experience.

Unfortunately, I fear that the institution of marriage has deteriorated, and now expresses the value "follow your heart"--as opposed to its traditional, more honorable but less feel-good counterpart, "do your duty," a dichotomy often noted by my husband.

Part of the gay-marriage mantra is that marriage is a declaration of love, a commitment of the heart. Those who are concerned about the future, however, also see it in a broader context, as the best place for two biological parents to offer their children models of marriage, for problem-solving and relating as a husband or a wife, in a secure, stable context.

Feelings constantly change; the message to children should be that behaving kindly, fairly and respectfully are paramount, no matter the situation or one's emotions. Ideals for behavior, unlike feelings, remain constant. (Remember the olden days, when baby girls were named "Constance" in hopes they'd emulate that virtue?) The importance of providing children with security that transcends fluctuating emotions is why marriage matters to society, and why government gets involved at all.  The fact two people fall in love is irrelevant to the unfeeling government.

Divorce (except in untenable situations like abuse and addiction), is a failure of one or both people to overcome division. Aside from all the emotional pain it causes everyone, it sends the message to children that conflicts may be resolved by running away. Or, that stubbornness, selfishness or rudeness prevail, and retaining one's position is of higher importance than harmony. Judith Wallerstein's findings confirm this.

I know from my experience as a psychologist that people escalate their arguments. That rehashing disputes only makes them grow. That partners can have overwhelming needs to be right. Or to control. Or to withdraw, and these cause anger, distance and disgust.

There's also always the option to accommodate, change and forgive.  People can avoid divorce if they internalize that their spouse is their soulmate, team-mate, source of support and best friend, and keep that as the underlying theme of every interaction, and ideally, every thought.

The other divorce-preventative is to understand that as much as your spouse is your alter-ego, the operative word is alter. Men and women are supposed to be opposites, innately different, and to expect the other to be your clone is not only wrong, but forfeits access to a second perspective--that can enhance and expand yours. A man and woman, hard-wired differently, combine in marriage for the same goals, forming a completed unit. Makes me wonder: How can two men, or two women together replicate those irreplaceable gender differences?

Answer: Marriage has been re-defined. It's now a declaration of love, a promise to care for the other. Companionate, not completionate.

So why has the divorce rate dropped since the early 80s? Is it because Judith Wallerstein taught us that children suffer permanently from divorce? Is it because fewer people marry? Probably both, but I would also speculate that divorce has become widely available and un-stigmatized, while at the same time the strident feminism and self-absorbtion of the past has relaxed, causing many to prefer the less-stressful path, which is to get along.

Don't misunderstand: Divorce remains a serious problem, and the work of Judith Wallerstein still holds. Some marriages are too punishing to continue, and children whose parents split will always agree with Dr. Wallerstein's finding that "for all [the children she followed], a significant part of their childhood or their adolescence had been a sad and frightening time" (Surviving the Breakup, p. 306).

And that might be the most significant deterrent to divorce of all--the memories held by so many now-grown children of their "sad and frightening time" as the collateral damage of divorce.

An Inconvenient Divorce

Al and Tipper Gore, once so mutually ga-ga over each other that Al claimed they inspired the best-seller Love Story, are splitting after 40 years of marriage.  The prevalent reaction isn't just shock, but "beyond shock," "shock of shocks," shocking like a bolt of globally-warm lightening.  Focus on the Family has come forth with offers to help the couple patch it up; bloggers are speculating with not much to go on beyond a terse email to friends saying the Gores' long-considered decision to separate was a "mutual and mutually supportive" response to "growing apart."

As a psychologist who wrote a book on the negative impact of divorce, I'm struck by the way people make consequential decisions to part based not on justifiable, unresolvable issues (drugs, abuse) but on cooling of passion or the ability to get away with "chopping and running" to what seems a greener-grass life.  When marriages are so cavalierly discarded, kids and society have no continuity, nothing to count on.

This is definitely an inconveneint divorce, for a couple who contrasted their romance with the far more distant marriage of Bill and Hilary Clinton.  It suggests to me that the Gores face much more than simply increasing indifference; there must be something truly irreparable, or the most face-saving course would be quiet counseling and reconciliation.  Rebuilding a relationship isn't simple, but for 40 years the Gores nurtured their image as a romantic and close couple.  Was that a political ploy?  You don't just turn around and look at a lifetime together and parenting four children and say "it doesn't feel good any more so we'll chuck it all."

Or, maybe you do.  When Al Gore entered politics, the electorate was generally older, and hadn't all embraced the Boomers' sexual revolution. To get elected you needed respectability. You needed marriage and family and even religion.  Al's got his Nobel Prize, he's "been there, done that" with politics, and found a niche in global warming...uh, "climate change."  Heck, he's even had his own movie and his own Oscar--the only human in history to earn both a Nobel Prize and Academy Award in the same year.  No need to stick around with Tipper.  On the other hand, a marriage is a complex thing. It could be Tipper who's had it with Al.

In either case, from the information available, it appears that if the Gores wanted to fix their problems and work on their marriage, they could.   Even they know that if you can "grow apart," you can "grow" back together if you're determined.  Love is a moment-to-moment decision; it's not "never having to say you're sorry."

That they consider it "mutually supportive" to ditch each other is one more illustration of the devaluing of marriage, an institution once the bedrock of every society and revered as the best place to nurture children while creating a bond like no other: the combining of the male and female soul, each with a unique contribution that only together form a whole.

Proponents of gay marriage (and I assume Al is one) seek to redefine marriage not as a permanent commitment to combine opposites into a fundamental family unit, but as a declaration of love.   So, when love fades, there's no marriage.

Al and Tipper's very public union not only produced progeny, but at their cultivation symbolized that even after 20, 30 years of teamwork, romance could prevail. Their lingering kiss on stage at the 2000 Democratic Convention was a public statement of their attraction and dedication.  And now what? A mutually-supportive shrug?

The norm in divorces is to look backward for signs that it was flawed all along.  Or that the split was inevitable.  Or that the personalities never really meshed properly.  I wonder if the Gore children would now say that Mom and Dad weren't really that close.  Or that they're glad Mom and Dad get to live out their separate lives.  Because they're "progressive," they probably have to.  Isn't it wonderful they had such a great ride for 40 years, and now can unclasp hands and walk into their individual sunsets?

No. It's sad, and tears apart not just two people but the edges of our most basic and important institution.