OPINION:
Viewers of the recent BBC1 drama, Marriage, fall into two camps. Those who were bored to tears by its awkwardness and mundanity and those who found it insightful and moving.
I fall into the latter category, not least because in a world in which 42 per cent of marriages in the UK end in divorce, and co-habitees separate at an even higher rate, this quiet portrayal of the everyday difficulties and disappointments of 30 years of life together, the ordinary tragedies, the tender moments and the things left unsaid, the pecks on the lips and spontaneous bursts of laughter, all add up to some important truths.
A successful marriage over the long term is mostly not thrilling or sexy. It’s about two people learning to rub along, sticking together for the sake of the family and/or because they just can’t imagine their lives without one another, even the bits that don’t come up to hopes or expectations. It’s about a sometimes quiet, sometimes combative kind of love that often feels closer to disdain, but always comes back to being worth it. We can learn a lot from how ordinary Emma and ordinary Ian somehow manage to hang on to their love as they manoeuvre themselves around the dishwasher in their cramped kitchen.
As I turn 70, coming up for 15 years into my current relationship, I find myself reflecting on my two past marriages, and thinking that the most enduring relationship of my life, the one that lasted 24 years and resulted in the birth of our beloved son, was a partnership that, with a little more vigilance, and knowing now what I failed to know or, more importantly, act on then, could have been saved.
And because I’m quite old-fashioned in my beliefs about loyalty and commitment, I look at the likes of Emma and Ian, and the real-life couples I know who’ve been married 30, 40 or even 50 years and wish I, like them, could have stayed the course. I can even share these feelings with my current partner because he feels the same about his former long marriage. Perhaps it could – should – have been saved.
Make or break
At every age and stage of a relationship there are common triggers that can make or break it. I reckon I’ve experienced most of the big ones. First, there was the early marriage at 19 to a man nine years my senior. I thought his sophistication and confidence would carry me along in its wake. And since he was a proper professional, a lawyer indeed, that he’d pass the parental approval test.
In retrospect I realised what I really wanted to do was leave home and be independent. I mistook moving out of home and exchanging wedding vows for freedom. I didn’t live with this man first, so I didn’t know that this life-and-soul-of-the-party person was a grump behind closed doors, arrogant and insensitive. When I was 25 we separated. I really don’t think that crushing marriage could have been saved and nor do I wish it had been. Most young women today know better than to rush into such early commitment.
But with my longest-term partner, who I met when I was 32 (he was three years younger), it was different. He was charming and kind and generous, and loved art and music and travel. He was romantic and a great cook. When our son was born we were both delirious with joy. We were equal parents, equal on the domestic front, and equally, unquestionably, happy.
Inwardly seething
The triggers came, they always do. Parenthood while juggling busy, demanding jobs is stressful, but we thought we were breezing it. Then came the job loss (his) and the two years of clinical depression (me). My illness changed both of us. He was saintly in his support, but I’m not sure he recognised me any more.
After this upheaval, emotional and sexual stagnancy set in. Being conflict-averse, we internalised the issues - not outwardly rowing, but inwardly seething, which was way worse.
There was a time, during and after my depression, when he had to work in a job he didn’t like in another part of England, coming home at weekends. I was barely keeping my head above water, but my son and I were so close and cosy, just the two of us. I think he felt shut out of our little unit: I felt the pressure of coping as a single mum, but without properly appreciating how much he missed us.
Then came his mid-life crisis, triggered by more career difficulties, alongside the prospect of the empty nest. Our darling boy heading for Australia for a gap year inspired my now not-quite-so-darling husband to take a gap year of his own. Trigger after trigger until finally an explosion was inevitable.
Learning from mistakes
So why on earth would you take advice from someone who has failed not just once, but twice, at marriage? Well, you needn’t, but I firmly believe failure teaches you more than success.
Now, of course, with Ronny, my current partner, there’s the tricky business of old age to navigate, upcoming retirement and inevitable health issues. Technology needs a mention. It’s not just the young who are glued to their phones. Oldies are equally addicted to their devices, often used as a way of avoiding communication.
Divorce among older people is on the rise. If you are dissatisfied and miserable with your partner and thinking, “I might have 20 or 30 more good years left and I can’t bear spending them with him/her,” there are plenty of examples of older divorcees who’ve started afresh in their 50s, 60s and beyond.
Not every marriage should be saved, but I think mine could have been. And maybe yours, too.
Chris and Galina’s story
Chris Saye’s career in finance took him to several countries while his children were growing up, and his family always accompanied him. But in 2019, with the kids having flown the nest, Chris and his wife Galina, both approaching 50, embarked on another journey together – one that would save or break their marriage.
Chris: ‘Travelling together switched on a light’
I met Galina in 1995 while working as an audit manager for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen in Kazakhstan. It was love at first sight. Galina was a single parent and already had a six-year-old daughter, born when she was 19. Two years later we married, I adopted Natasha and we then went on to have our sons, Nicholas and Marcus.
In 2019, for the first time, we had no children living with us. Many marriages fall apart once the kids leave, and we had begun to sense how this can happen. Each partner gets settled in their own separate routines. Boredom sets in and there’s also a sense of knowing each other too well. Neither of us had a plan to leave the marriage, but neither could fully commit to our future together either. What would be the driving forces or values that would determine how we would live out the rest of our lives?
Galina said we needed to see if we could discover some new glue for our relationship. She has always believed travel takes people out of their comfort zones and brings out the real person. We had the savings to do it and so we set off on a journey to the “blue zones”, the longevity hotspots, which have an unusually high number of people who live to 100, to see if we could learn not just the secrets of long life but something that might help straighten our fragile relationship. Over the course of the year we travelled to Nicoya in Costa Rica, Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia and to the Greek island of Ikaria.
When we started the trip our future as a married couple was very cloudy and confused. It didn’t magically resolve all our issues, but one of the things we saw from the communities we lived with during our trip was the strong thread of family. It wasn’t until some months after our return that the light switched on. That I’ve made a commitment to this person, that we have three children, that we have grandchildren and that I don’t want to create another family. There is absolute clarity now that this is the person I want to be with and that we are going to finish our lives together.
We were lucky to have the time and resources for this trip and some might think it was an indulgence. But for us it was also a necessity.
- Chris Saye’s Fly: An Empty Nester’s Quest for the Holy Grail Of Life, Love and Longevity is available on Amazon
Galina: ‘The trip was a reminder that we were a good team’
Once our three children had left home, Chris seemed to become even more into his work and career, and although he had always been a great father to all our kids, he wasn’t a great husband in terms of being there for me. Every time we would discuss something it would be about work, never about how was your day and what did you do?
Unlike Chris, for whom it was so frightening to let the kids go, I was actually looking forward to the next stage of our lives, dreaming about how the two of us were going to have so much fun together.
One of the things we always love doing is going on long walks, but after the last child left, I realised that we no longer walked together – he always walked ahead of me. To me, it was a sign that something was really wrong with our relationship. He seemed frightened of it being just the two of us. I, on the other hand, had psyched myself up for this stage of my life, as I had turning 50, years before.
One conclusion I’d already reached is that the current focus on personal development – my interests, my desires – is not good for relationships. We had to separate the “me” from “we” and put the “we” ahead of “us”.
We were reaching a point where we didn’t communicate at all. We were speaking, but we were no longer hearing one another.
When we started travelling, I saw Chris being funny, creative and carefree, all the things that made me fall in love with him all those years ago. It was a good reminder that we were a great team.
I am a bit of a controller by nature – the trip was also a reminder to me to let go, to love him for what he is. I can tell him that I love him for simple things now, for being a kind man, for doing the dishes. Chris thinks that my letting go of trying to change him has probably changed him more than if I had nagged him.
We are able to dream together now. We are building a home in Valencia in Spain and starting to put down roots there. We seem to have managed to find the new glue that will help us shape our future together.
Claire’s story
Claire*, 68, who teaches piano, is married to William, a retired head teacher. They have two daughters and four grandchildren and live in Glasgow. She forgave him for the affair she now believes was a gift to their relationship.
Claire: ‘I felt numbed, as though my whole world had collapsed’
Our girls were in their teens. Out of the blue one day, William told me he was having an affair and wasn’t sure if our marriage would last. It had never crossed my mind that anything was going on. For days I felt utterly numbed, as though my whole world had collapsed.
But despite the pain I also knew I didn’t want our family to break up. There was something inside me that wanted to save our marriage – not just for us, but for our family, our friendships. However humiliated I felt, I knew I would fight to keep us together.
He hadn’t reached the point of leaving, but neither had he ended the affair and that was painful. He was clearly in a state of confusion, and it felt that by confessing he was asking me to step in.
Part of me wanted to get on the phone to this woman. I wanted to tell her what destruction she was causing. Thank goodness I restrained myself because I think that would have pushed us further apart, and he may have ended up aligning himself with her to protect her from my attack.
While fighting for our marriage, I thought about the fact that we had met when we were very young and that both of us were inexperienced. I’d even experienced my own intense feelings for others during our marriage, but I never took them as far as a sexual relationship.
We did try counselling but William hated it and we had dreadful rows afterwards as the counsellor seemed to have more sympathy for me than for him. But I never gave up, I never gave him an ultimatum – I never even asked if the affair was continuing. Over time I felt the infrastructure of our family becoming more and more secure, and I was somehow able to forgive him.
There was one turning point that had real significance, I think, for William. I didn’t intend to tell my girls, who were both in their teens at the time, but one day I took the older one out shopping. She came bounding out of the changing room and did a joyous twirl. I burst into tears. “What’s wrong Mum?” she asked. “I can’t look that bad!” And I found myself telling her. She was so furious with her father she refused to speak to him, and in a way I think that’s what made William realise he would lose far more than me.
It was strengthening to our marriage to know we shared so much that was precious. A wise therapist once told me that we sometimes put too much emphasis on the couple relationship. Partners are propped up in the bosom of family, community and friendship.
Whenever friends have come to me about affairs that are rocking their marriages, I always advise them to slow down. To wait for the rage to diminish before deciding to end things.
I’ve come to see William’s affair as a gift. I don’t need to know how long it went on for after he told me about it.
Warning signs you could be heading for divorce
Neither of you are willing to put the work in
Living like roommates, with no emotional connection or communication, is a red flag in any marriage.
You are struggling to find any common ground
No matter how many new hobbies or interests you try, you still prefer to spend your time with pals.
You are keeping secrets from each other
These needn’t be big things like an affair or money troubles, but as soon as you stop being honest with each other, your marriage may have come to an end.
Most of your interactions are negative
When even asking what your husband/wife would like for dinner ends in a full-blown argument, it may be time to call it a day, especially if you have young children who are privy to these rows.
Nothing seems to be working
You’ve talked to each other, you’ve tried counselling, but nothing seems to get you back on track. Sometimes we have to admit that not all marriages can be saved.
* Names have been changed
