The Ever Puzzling Meaning of Marriage and Partnerships

The divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates is getting a lot of attention. Mostly because of the money involved, and the many charitable organizations they support.

But more importantly is the end for them of a long marriage. It was apparently complicated and different than most marriages, but it still kept them together doing important work and it created three beautiful children, the oldest Jenn, currently in medical school, son Rory, a university student, and daughter Phoebe, an aspiring ballerina who has studied at the Juilliard School of Performing Arts.

The Gates’ divorce shows that even brilliant and vastly wealthy people are human and have to deal with many of the same common challenges we all face.

Marriage and long term relationships encounter a variety of difficulties that require a couple to grow individually and together. Career choices, children, finances, religious practices, political views, and choosing friends are just some of the decisions couples eventually confront.

As we age and finally get to know each other, we often discover rifts, disagreements, personality quirks, inner wounds perhaps from childhood, cultural conflicts, parental interference, and so on that disrupt the partnership we share.

Psychology professor and author of the book, The All-or-Nothing Marriage, Eli Finkel writes, “There isn’t just one true and proper way to love, to relate, to bond, to touch. Any style of relationship is the right one, as long as it’s a decision made by the whole person and not the hole in the person.”

That is a vital insight. And “the hole” in a person is a reference to someone who is looking for someone else to fill up the missing pieces of their life, rather than someone who is emotionally healthy, stable, self-aware, and growing as a person.

All long term marriages and relationships are ultimately forced to deal with this reality. Those that do usually grow wiser, and become integrated and allied. Those that don’t too often sour, crumble, and either end or remain a miserable duty.

I believe we are born to be in a loving, intimate, cooperative relationship with another person. It is a human instinct. Some simply choose to remain alone or in on and off romances or encounters. And whatever the reasons, that is a decision some choose to make. And it should not be judged. However that, too, is not without its own set of problems.

Psychotherapist and author, Esther Perel, has written, “Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Couples committed to one another know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It’s a story that they are writing together, one with many chapters, and neither partner knows how it will end. There’s always a place they haven’t gone yet, always something about the other still to be discovered.”

There is real hard work in that simple and somewhat innocent description. But I believe two people loving each other, caring for the needs of the relationship, and their own individual needs, can discover that kind of meaning together.

We change through the years. So does our love, our needs, our desires and hopes, our bodies, our energy levels. And hopefully, along that journey we experience a deepening commitment to each other, the joy of life shared, and those rare but incredible discoveries in our relationship that keep wonder alive in us and an awareness we share something enduring.

That’s some advice from a long divorced single man. But I’ve been there. And hopefully, I’ve learned some things. And perhaps one day, I’ll share them with someone I love.

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The Unclad Soul

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