Speaking of ‘stories,’ I love the way John Le Carre, the author, defines ‘story.’ In an interview, he said, “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not a story. ‘The cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is a story.” In other words, stories involve two characters or things or cultures coming into a conflictual relationship with one another. And what I think that means for couples is this: when you and your stories come into contact with me and my stories, we create new stories together, stories about the two of us. Does that sound confusing? (Or a little exhausting??!) Well…that’s also what makes couple relationships so interesting!

So the next time you’re taking offense at something your partner said or did, think about your stories. What stories are you telling yourself, and what new stories are you and your partner creating together as you come into contact (and conflict) with each other?

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But is it?

Michelle Cottle, one of my favorite journalists, offered this take on the Gore separation. I like what she said. As upsetting as it might be for many of us who look to public figures to exemplify healthy marriages, it’s not all that hard to see how this separation makes good sense for this particular couple, and need not be seen as evidence that marriage in general is in trouble. My partner and I have been together for ten years, and if I have my way, we’ll be toasting each other at our fiftieth in 2049, with hopes for another 20 years of love and happiness. (He’s a really great guy.) But some couples follow a different path. Notice Michelle’s comment about the “unblinking” public eye that gazed upon the Gores for so long. Could your marriage survive that? Maybe. But it makes sense if Al and Tipper found themselves at an impasse, even though they’ve been together for so long. (Or…because they’ve been together for so long…)

If you’re a curious, courageous soul who loves your spouse and hopes to enjoy a lifelong marriage, you won’t necessarily suffer the fate of Al and Tipper. Anything is possible, but conscious intent is powerful. If you’re worried or saddened by the Gores’ story, take some time to talk to your spouse. Find out whether s/he feels you’re both doing okay. Try to be flexible, open, and daring as the two of you learn from the experiences of other couples and plan a bright future together.

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Practically speaking, this is probably just a little mental exercise for me, an attempt to write a wedding vow that would never actually be taken by someone. I say this because weddings and union ceremonies are highly emotional events, and the couple in question invariably wants to emphasize the “until death do we part” theme. On a wedding day, nobody wants to think about the things you go to couples counseling to work on. And often enough, there’s nothing wrong with that. Some couples seem to be made for each other, and their wedding-day bliss makes for a great opening scene to a long and nourishing life together.

But most couples–and I count myself in this group–go through the ordinary developmental crises that intimate relationships face: the need for both persons to grow and mature; the difficulties they face at different stages in their lives; the ways they handle (or mishandle) anxiety, anger, distrust, and discord; and the inevitable ups and downs of sex, money, in-laws, kids, careers, substance use, and…well, you get the idea. For me, phrases like “in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer” just don’t cut it.

So here goes: my attempt at a wedding vow that gets a little closer to what I think a healthy marriage/partnership is. I’ll start with two examples of typical vows, then offer my own.

Here’s a traditional vow that most people hear at most weddings (particularly in the movies): “I take you, _____, to be my _____, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

That’s your basic vow–short and eloquent, with the usual polarities (healthy/sick, rich/poor). One concern, though: it doesn’t say much about the inevitable difficulties couples face in the dynamics of a typical relationship, and I wonder if more marriages would last if the couple had words for what they would do if their relationship were in real trouble. This vow is short and elegant, but to a fault. It doesn’t say enough.

Here’s the vow I took in a blessing ceremony with my partner in 2003: “I, _____ give myself to you, _____, and these things I promise you: I will be faithful to you and honest with you; I will respect, trust, help, and care for you; I will forgive you as we have been forgiven; and I will share my life with you, through the best and worst of all that is to come, until death parts us.”

That’s better. It assumes there will be conflict (“I will forgive you…”), it stresses the importance of honesty and respect, and it drops the usual “sickness/health” language for “the best and worst of all that is to come,” which to my ears rings with a deeper wisdom.

But I still think we’re not there yet. Here’s my first stab at a vow that might bear the “Therapist Seal of Approval”: “I, _____ offer myself to you, _____, and these things I promise you: in times of rejoicing, I will celebrate with you; in times of sorrow, I will weep with you. When we fight, I will be honest with you; when I am wrong, I will seek your forgiveness. I will strive to share with you a life of respect, trust, growth, and love, through the best and worst of all that is to come, until death parts us.”

Hmm… I think that’s better. For starters, I like “I offer myself to you” more than “I give myself to you.” It implies the freedom of the other person to say, “No, thanks” to my giving of myself, and even though this is really not the best moment to do that, it’s healthy for couples to remember that they are freely offering themselves to one another, and freely choosing not to say No to the offer. This vow also assumes that not only will there be conflict, but that the person taking the vow will sometimes be wrong.

And finally, that last line: “I will strive to share with you…” That’s the line that I think would be hard for couples to say to each other. There’s an obvious (and big!) loophole: striving to do something isn’t the same as simply doing it. If I promise to strive, that implies that I could decide at some point that it won’t work, and the striving isn’t worth it. It’s the kind of thing a hospital might tell a patient: “We will strive to save your life…” If the patient dies, well, the hospital still strived. It also sounds a little klutzy, I think. It sounds like the kind of language you hear in Therapyland.

But I can’t figure out a better way to take a healthy wedding/partnership vow. There are millions of well-intentioned, good people in the world who take the traditional vow and wind up divorced. And because they assumed all along that they both made promises of unconditional fidelity, it’s hard to see the divorce as anything but a dismal failure. But many divorces are actually the healthiest option for the couples in question. Can you imagine a few scenarios in which divorce is the better choice? I’m sure you can. Again, it’s probably in bad taste to raise these issues on a wedding day. Lots of people would probably be superstitious about it–that if you talk about it, you’re tempting fate. But I maintain that a healthier vow makes for a healthier marriage.

As for the klutzy language, all I can say is, I’m working on it!

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Back in June I posted on the then-revelatory news that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had had an affair (and a spectacular one, at that). And ever since then, I’ve felt increasingly uncomfortable with my June-09 take on the story. The hapless governor has looked worse and worse in my view. And it isn’t just the emails. It’s that after he disclosed his affair to his wife Jenny, he then asked for her permission to visit his lover. Maybe this is obvious, but that’s a no-no.

He never came to me for advice, but here’s how a better man (or woman) in that situation would handle it: 1) if you’re not planning to end it—or are at all ambivalent about ending it—tell your spouse about the affair; 2) if you can honestly say that you want to move in the direction of reviving your marriage (or bringing it to life for the first time), then by all means seek counseling; 3) stop telling the world about it and respect your spouse’s privacy, if not your own; 4) if you want to visit your lover, then visit her, but you’ll need to go back to step one and reconsider whether you really want to honor your spouse with a legitimate reconciliation process.

Since Gov. Sanford did none of these things, when I learned that his wife filed for divorce, I thought it was a good move. To borrow a line from one of my favorite therapists and authors, Mark Sanford forced Jenny Sanford to choose between her integrity and her marriage. I’m glad she chose wisely.

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First, just so you know I get the joke (if it is a joke), I wouldn’t be surprised if Savage was just being provocative and sarcastic when he said monogamy is “unnatural.” After all, the people he tends to criticize are the people who love to separate “natural” human behaviors (such as, say, heterosexual missionary-style sex) from “unnatural” human behaviors (every other kind of sexual act, particularly if both participants share the same gender). Since I don’t read Savage too much, I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. But on the chance that he’s being serious—that he truly holds to the view that long-term monogamous relationships are “unnatural” for humans, I would only say that he needs to clarify from what perspective he is stating this opinion. Is he reasoning as a sociologist or an anthropologist? I doubt it. And if not, then he’s just making a claim based on his own values and experience, and his label “unnatural” is, for the purposes of any serious debate, nonsensical.

Okay, that was pretty wordy, and probably sounded snarky. Sorry. But I have a button that Savage pushed: I think people should speak from their area of expertise. If you’re a theologian, I don’t want you telling me your theory of the origin of the species. That’s a biologist’s job. You might have opinions about these things, but that’s all they are—opinions. And if you’re a biologist, I don’t think you’re an expert on the existential dilemmas of the human race, or the meaning of death, or the purpose of life. You might have opinions about these things, but that’s all they are—opinions.

But back to Savage’s theme, which was his contention that non-monogamous relationships are superior to monogamous ones. Speaking from my area of expertise—I am a couples therapist—I disagree. I think all forms of coupling carry both gifts and challenges. If you’re in a non-monogamous, polyamorous relationship, you have the freedom to explore your sexuality with multiple partners, fill your days and years with a variety of romantic companions, and resolve the typical relationship problems (boredom, low desire, conflict, anxiety) by involving others in the dynamic. But you are also vulnerable to the challenges non-monogamous relationships raise, such as jealousy, complicated triangulation, and an increased chance that no one will become as emotionally intimate with each other as they would if they were in a one-on-one relationship.

But if you’re in a monogamous relationship, it’s not a day at the park, either. You have the gifts of a one-on-one union, and for me the greatest gift of monogamy is the incredible (and incredibly difficult) transformation and maturity that happens when you really work on drawing closer emotionally (and physically) to one other person. If Savage thinks monogamy is “unnatural” because of the divorce rate, or boredom, or diminishing sexual satisfaction in the monogamous relationships he has known in his research and personal life, I see these problems as the challenges of monagamy, not evidence that it is inferior to other relationship arrangements. Savage seems to be making a common mistake: he sees problems and challenges as evidence that a relationship arrangement is flawed. I see them as part of the normal developmental process. Sometimes the problems and challenges are the very things we need to grow, develop, and find happiness together.

If Savage is upset with “monoganazis” who insist that their way is best, he would do well to avoid their methods of separating everyone into groups labeled “natural” and “unnatural.” I’ll say it this way: if you’re in a relationship, it’s going to be lovely, thrilling, hard, frustrating, and sometimes just plain boring. All of this is natural. All of this is normal. Let’s keep everyone in one group of natural, normal humans who are participating in the mystery of relationships.

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Yes and no. Sanford faced the cameras alone, told the whole truth about what happened, and neither vilified his lover nor humiliated his wife. By our current national political standards, Sanford was in a class by himself. His wife has filed for a trial separation, and though I don’t know either of them, I think it’s a safe guess that she’s not immediately seeking divorce in part because he has behaved honorably…at least for the last few days.

In the article I linked to above, Cristina Nehring writes, “Let us hope that Mark and his graceful wife (who to her credit, both initiated a trial separation, and allowed him to explain his affair to the world alone, without holding his hand as though she was a babysitter who had reclaimed her charge) can put things together again in a new, imaginative, and electric way.”

I share that hope. The fact that Sanford truly loved his ‘mistress’* might make it both easier and harder to reconcile with his wife and have a new, “electric” marriage with her. Easier because in his confession of love, Sanford sounded like an emotionally aware, thoughtful man who did finally face up to what he had done. He’s not a misbehaving boy who forces his wife to play the thankless role of jilted babysitter. And it might be harder because this truly was the flowering of a new, loving relationship, and no doubt both Sanford and his wife will have a great deal to wrestle with. Sanford must not only make amends to her if he wants to rebuild his marriage (and, most likely, if he wants to look in the mirror without wincing). He will also have to discern with her whether they both want to build powerful intimacy and passion in a true marriage of love.

Only men and women can do that kind of thing.

* I used the word ‘mistress’ here because I couldn’t think of a better moniker for ‘the other woman.’ But I dislike the word ‘mistress.’ To me it evokes outdated images of powerful men and their femmes fatales. If you have a better term for this, please let me know!

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In Sonia Sotomayor’s case, I read what many of her colleagues wrote about her temperament, and I wondered if they would be so critical if she were a White male and not a Latina. Would people call her “difficult,” “outspoken,” “excitable,” and “a terror on the bench”? I don’t know. I haven’t met her. But I have my doubts.

This led me to reflect more on the power of culture in relationships. Look at those words–difficult, outspoken, excitable, a terror–and ask yourself, do I think my partner is like that? And if so, have I automatically (even unconsciously) concluded that that’s bad? Or has it been the other way around? Does my partner think I’m difficult? Does s/he accuse me of being outspoken? And if so, why is that an accusation?

Almost every couple experiences a culture clash of one kind or another. Different religious backgrounds, or one of them has no religious background at all. Different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Different experiences of homophobia. One of them grew up in an abusive household. One of them was raped. One of them is an adult child of an alcoholic. One of them was an army brat who saw the world, and the other has never been more than 100 miles from home. One of them grew up in an affluent family, the other has experienced serious poverty. And so on…

If you are in a conflictual relationship, I’ll bet there’s at least some amount of culture clash going on. If so, I encourage you to notice whether one or both of you is pathologizing the other culture. Judge Sotomayor is outspoken? Okay…and why is that bad? Is it bad because it makes White attorneys who argue before her uncomfortable? Okay…and why is that bad?! Take care not to blame your discomfort on your partner’s cultural difference from you. If you avoid doing that, you have a much better chance of increasing the understanding–and harmony–in your relationship.

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