After you have been through the excruciating pain and over-whelming frustration of a long, drawn-out, failed marriage, the last thing you want to be known as is someone else’s husband or wife. The mere sound of those words makes you tense up and is accompanied by mental images of finger nails scratching on a blackboard, the clanging of cold, steel-barred prison doors slamming shut, and the intonation of the judges sentence reverberating in your ears,“For life! No chance of parole!”With reactions like those you can see why Bernah and Bernie felt the need to come up with a different way of describing their relationship, especially between the two of them. Their solution was to refer to themselves as partners, equal in all respects. This had the interesting effect of allowing them to negotiate all aspects of their relationship. While everybody has at least an unconscious idea of what sorts of things husbands and wives are suppose to do, most of us do not have a clear idea of what partners are suppose to do.The first crisis that they faced was how to go about financing their partnership. This was not easy. Neither one of them liked the idea of just throwing their money into one common pot and then paying all of their joint and individual bills out of it. They had tried this before with very poor results. Bernah had watched helplessly as her first husband squander their meager resources on a range of personal indulgences. Bernie, on the other hand, had controlled the purse strings in his earlier marriage, but the price was a steep one. He was constantly being cast in the role of Scrooge by a spouse who assumed none of the fiscal responsibilities for their household. The trick was to find a way to manage their two incomes that would avoid these earlier pitfalls.They hit upon the idea of dividing their expenses into three different pots: yours, mine, and ours. They called the “ours” account the company funds; it included things like rent, utilities, insurance, car payments, cable TV, and food. The “yours” and “mine” ac-counts covered things like clothing, gas, entertainment, and mad money. The system required two joint checking accounts and two joint credit card accounts. Bernie had the accounting experience, so he was able to keep two sets of books in his checking and credit card accounts, one for the company funds and the other for his own. Bernah just had to keep her own books straight. The system worked beautifully. Their contributions to the company funds were in proportion to their relative incomes and neither one was allowed to question any of the others expenditures from their personal accounts. It eliminated the feuding that had gone on in their earlier marriages, and it gave each of them a stronger sense of their own individuality.This system also had an interesting effect on their outside entertainment habits. When they went out to eat, they split the check down the middle. There was no quibbling about who ate or drank what. It was one shared expense. When they went to a movie, they each both bought their own tickets. When they went on vacations, they split the cost of transportation and lodgings. It seemed very strange to Bernie at first. He had always been the breadwinner. He paid the bills. It was both his duty and a big part of his self-worth. The reality of his financial position which was greatly diminished by alimony and child support payments helped him to get over the awkward feelings. Eventually, the words would not stick in his throat. He would just tell Bernah how much her share was, or he would just watch her purchase her theater ticket and then step up to the window and purchase his own. It confused a lot of service providers, but not the two partners.One of the most depressing and frustrating parts of being in a failing relationship is the feeling of having little or no control over your situation. It ties your stomach in knots; it makes the veins on your neck bulge out; and, if you are a Bernie, it can even make you smash your fist into the wall. The device that Bernah and Bernie came up with to minimize a return of those deadly emotional reac-tions was the veto. It was an absolutely exquisite solution, and there were no limits as to how often or when it could be used. Any joint decision had to be just that, an agreement by both partners. If either Bernah or Bernie said “no”, it was “no”. They were not required to justify their position, although they were permitted to change their minds later on. Vetoes were good for:“I don;t want to eat there”;“I don’t want to sit there”;“I don’t like those plants”; and, even,“I’ve changed my mind, let’s get out of here!”Of course, there is a great deal of trial and error that goes into creating a worthwhile, long-term partnership. And, there are the inevitable missteps along the way, like the time that Bernah was making her evening snack. She was bone-tired after a long day of teaching at the end of a long year of teaching. There was absolute-ly no physical, emotional, or mental slack left in her system.Normally, Bernie was very good at reading Bernah’s non-verbal messages, but not that day. He ignored the irritable edge in her voice when she complained to him about the toaster oven’s toasting her bread on only one side. He didn’t ask her what she wanted him to do about it, a wise and prudent thing to do in such circumstances. Instead, he foolishly launched into a lecture about the relative merits of using the toaster instead of the toaster oven to accomplish the results she wanted.Bernah had heard this song before. She didn’t like it then, and she surely did not want to hear it again now. Besides, the kitchen was just big enough for one person to work in, and Bernie was now taking up some of her valuable space, examining the toaster oven. And, did I mention, Bernah was very, very, hungry. She ordered Bernie out of her kitchen.There was now a large warning sign flashing in the kitchen,“Danger, Danger, 10 seconds to melt-down!”Bernie did not budge, until he felt the breeze of the wooden serving spoon whistling by his ear.When things calmed down a bit, Bernie apologized for his insensitivity and thanked Bernah for having the good graces not to hit him with her warning shot. A few days later, over their morning coffee, they both laughed about the tale of the whistling serv-ing spoon.Life was good, again.
Learning how to make a second marriage a success after experiencing the disaster of the first marriage’s demise is not easy. It involves not only finding a better match, but also the willingness to make ourselves into a better partner. That involves owning our part in the failure of our first marriage and also learning to change our own relationship distructive behaviors. See more about relationship building in my book, “The Game of Life” at my website www.franklosik.com/books
Comments
A “better” partner. I like that.