On my way home this week from visiting my daughter in Seattle, I listened to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on XM radio. She is an interesting, articulate and self-assured woman, no matter her opinions.
During her daily radio program she places herself in treacherous territory with abandon and the day I listened she took a call from “Rich” who phoned in for permission to divorce his wife.
Rich has been married for many years and said that while he is attracted to his wife, he married her out of obligation. When they first met she was a young widow and mother. After a series of hasty, intense encounters she became pregnant and he married her out of his sense of responsibility.
They raised their children together. Today he wants to find “true” love — not the kind you experience organizing soccer games and Easter egg hunts. Not the love that swells your heart during family movie nights and college graduations.
Change can be as enticing as a drug. It lures people of all ages into thinking that a change in jobs, toys, houses, clothes, communities, friends or partners will help us feel better about ourselves and create an environment of greater happiness.
A note of clarification is due here: I do not advocate that anyone stay in a dangerous relationship. If children are involved, their safety is paramount as they depend on the wisdom of adults for their guidance and well being.
What I am suggesting is we rethink our habitual recycling of people and intimate relationships. Rather than looking deep into our own souls, recalling our promises, considering our religious stirrings and choosing to make significant and difficult changes in our lives aimed at improving our relationships, we are quick to toss it all and move on. We limit our abilities to make wonderful lives with the people we chose when living gets hard, routine and predictable. We seem unable to envision a path that leads to contentment and joy with those closest to us and instead chase the undefinable enticement we label as “happiness” and “love.”
Worse yet, we ask those who love and depend on us to go along for the ride. Change allegiances. Adjust. Love and bond with others who have no history with us and may disappear when things are no longer fun.
Perhaps you can guess Dr. Laura’s response. She challenged Rich to embark on a new journey with his wife. To find ways to rekindle the sparks that once lit their fires. To try dating each other again and build new dreams by fashioning new projects, especially now that the intensity of their child-rearing years are behind them and they have the luxury of time and space to be creative and focused.
It was not what Rich wanted to hear. Digging deep and rising from the ashes feels overwhelming.
While I’ll never know the outcome, I hope he’s working to resuscitate his marriage. His children and grandchildren will be marvelously served by watching a marriage that is growing, adjusting and increasingly satisfying because they valued each other enough to recreate a happy life together.
Now that’s the kind of change we can all live with!
