Parshat Pinchas: Happy Anniversary – Tips On Marriage
This week marks Karen and my 36th wedding anniversary on the secular calendar. It will be in a few weeks on the Jewish calendar since we got married after Tisha B’Av. That date – which is a sad day in Jewish history since both Temples were destroyed – must have been seared in my mother’s mind because the engraved gold inscription she made on our wedding album has “ Av 9 ” when really we were married on the 11th. They say that every marriage is like another stone in the rebuilding of the 3rd Beit HaMikdash/Temple, so I guess that is what she must have been thinking.
Do we have the perfect marriage? No. We have our moments. Karen and I are both pretty strong-willed and we can have our intense disagreements. So much so that one of our kids recently recalled that when she would hear us argue she feared we would get a divorce. Rest assured we weren’t close to that. If anything, it’s those couples who never argue that all of sudden you get the news that they’re splitting. “But they never disagreed!” So a good battle between couples is not a bad sign, only if it’s incessant and frequent.
So other than have a good fight every once in a while, here are some tips I have picked up along the way:
Number One: When it comes to making the relationship work, it doesn’t have to be equal. I am the one that makes the greater effort to keeping our relationship from getting stale. No, this is not one of those statements, that if you would ask Karen she would say otherwise. She will readily agree. And that’s ok. Like anything, some people are better at certain skills than others. So don’t feel resentful if one of you is doing most of the lifting in this area. He or she is probably doing most of the lifting in other crucial areas that keep a relationship working. Complimenting each other is what makes a marriage work.
Number Two: You don’t have to share everything. You are allowed to have your own life. I have my interests and Karen has hers. I like hockey, politics and playing tennis – she doesn’t. She likes needlepoint, Scandinavian murder mysteries and soccer – I don’t. She has her friends and confidents, and I have mine. Sometimes they overlap, many times they do not. When she is in the midst of shmuzzing with her good friend and our neighbor and I come along and more than say hello, she will politely tell me to get lost. “She’s my friend, not yours.” And that’s fine. I am not offended in the least. Of course we have mutual friends but having a close friend and confident outside the marriage that you can dump on other than the wife or husband is very healthy for a relationship. I don’t have to always be her main psychologist and she doesn’t have to be mine.
Don’t get me wrong, of course we share things. First and foremost children and now, thank God, grandchildren. We look at life and people very similarly in many respects. We share a love for Israel and Judaism and showing others the beauty and importance of both. And we both like a nice glass of wine and getting away to spend time alone, amongst many other things.
Number Three: There are different models of marriages. I was just visiting someone at his home this week. He is a very fit and young 80-year-old who seems much younger than that. His wife is somewhat younger by about 15 years. As she took leave of the house she came over to the living room where we were sitting, leaned over and kissed him good-bye and told him “I love you.” He said the same. Karen and I never do that. We don’t do “hon”, “honey”, “sweetie”, “babe” or “love”. And almost never kiss each other good-bye unless she is about to get on a plane for Israel on a Momentum trip. But that’s fine. It’s not our thing. There is no right or wrong here. It’s whatever the two of you are comfortable with. So don’t get worked up about how other couples communicate with each other if it is different than the way you might.
And finally Number Four and perhaps the most important idea which I have written about many times. Your spouse has to be numero uno in your life. Not your kids. Not your parents, siblings or any other important relationship. This is mentioned very early on in the Torah when Eve is first brought to Adam. It says, “Therefore a man should leave behind his father and his mother and cling to his wife so that they become one body.”
As I’ve mentioned in my essay about raising kids, quoting author and columnist John Rosemond, “The goal of having children is to get them out of your life as soon as possible.” Which is just a brash way of saying that children go on to have their independent lives. Of course you might be spending more time quantitatively with the kids, but children need to know – and indeed deep down are happy to know because it offers them a greater sense of security – that they aren’t first and foremost in your life. The wife or husband is. Never lose sight of the fact that wife or husband has to be first and foremost on the radar screen of your life.
So there you have it – some tips on marriage I have picked up along the way. “But wait, you left out a really important part – intimacy.” Yeah, I’m not going there. Kids and wife would be mortified if I start to write about that. Which is another important lesson about marriage – don’t create cringe in the other.
Happy Anniversary, dear.
You’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
You’d be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
At long last Love has arrived
And I thank God I’m alive
You’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
-Frankie Vallie And The Four Seasons
