Reflecting On Marriage Imitating Couple You Admire Could Save Relationship

Some years ago, while I was at school helping set up tables in the gym for a function, Nicky W., one of my son’s fourth-grade friends, asked me, “Are you divorced?” “No,” I answered.

“Well, how come your wife is never with you when you’re here at school?” I told him my wife was busy during the day.

Then he looked at me hard, and said, “It’s OK if parents fight … that’s how they solve problems.”

“Yes, Nick, that’s right,” I agreed.

“No matter what happens, I know my mom and dad will always love me.”

“Oh, my God!” I thought to myself, “The W’s are getting a divorce.”

Nicky’s father told me later, he and his wife, like many couples, communicated about the everyday matters and superficial concerns - like who’s going to drive the kids to soccer practice - but forgot about sharing their important needs and fears, hopes and dreams.

It was the old song. They got so involved in daily activities that they didn’t speak of or hear many of the things that they wished the other had known. Frustrated, their verbal exchanges too often became digs at each other’s sore spots made with learned accuracy.

Finally they arrived at the point where their marriage was vulnerable and it fell apart with all the attendant sorrow of these situations; not lost in a blazing moment, but rather over years of making it through hectic days and thousands of tuna casseroles for dinner.

It must be easy to do since so many people fall into that trap, even though lots of them stay married and some even figure out how to fix things.

Fixing things doesn’t mean turning back the clock to the time of newlywed bliss because newlyweds don’t have wisdom or insight into the matter. All they’ve got is love (at best).

Advice columns about saving marriages seem to always include the counsel of “working on” your marriage. “Try harder.” “Every marriage has to be worked on - you just can’t let it lie there,” strikes an image, perhaps particularly American, that great effort will repair a marriage as though it’s a roof that keeps showing new leaks.

Do enough of this and the mindfulness of the “ever-present project” prevents the couple from being alone together in situations that might genuinely breathe life into the marriage.

But if any advice columnist or marriage counselor had a high success rate, the whole nation would hear about it and they could sell franchises in every town and village in America. Until some marriage messiah steps up with all (or even most) of the answers, troubled couples will continue to turn to books, friends, religion and therapists - or simply trudge on for the sake of the kids.

However, there may be another place to turn.

First you must find someone who has a marriage that you esteem. This can be tricky. Couples can and do hide their marital flaws with great craft. Consider but do not rely solely on their marriage’s longevity. It will be necessary to become well-acquainted with the couple. Watch them in different situations. Then consult them.

People are usually agreeable to sharing what they’ve learned if they feel your inquiry is genuine.

As with other remedies for failing marriages, this is all irrelevant if your spouse is beyond - or without - hope. But it is also hopeless to try to solve the problem without a clear picture of what you want or can have. One can end up taking a marriage columnist’s advice to “work hard” as you earnestly go down the wrong road.

Nicky’s dad concluded his marital autopsy by saying, “I guess I thought that marriage was just that way. I didn’t see any of my friends or acquaintances who had anything much better.”

In order to find a worthy marriage to consider, couples may have to break into new social groups - and that’s hard to do. Even harder than divorce.

MEMO: Darin Z. Krogh is a free-lance writer based in Cheney.