Prime Time - Jane Fonda [74]
It takes being intentional to keep passionate intimacy alive and well. For example, romantic time needs to be scheduled. So does talking things through. In the past, I would often stuff down my feelings about things my partner did that I didn’t like, because I was scared he’d leave, and then where would I be? Now when something my partner has done upsets me, I schedule a sit-down to talk about it … or he forces us to talk about it when he feels something’s not right. Invariably we come away from these talks stronger than before. I’ve told him what I like about him and what I have problems with. I am realistic enough to know that there are things he can’t change and things I’m too old to want to fix. Like Suzanna, I’m tired of trying to fix a mate. (Not that I don’t bite my tongue sometimes!) But I feel that at this point, if he wants this to work enough, he will make an effort to do certain things differently if they are deal breakers for me, and I am prepared to do the same for him.
I sometimes feel guilty because I want so much in a relationship. In my grandparents’ day, couples seemed to accept that after a while romance would be replaced by companionship. But back then companionship didn’t get that old, because people didn’t get that old. They died. Instead of getting bored and divorcing, people died and the remaining spouse remarried—or not. Terrence Real, in his wonderful book The New Rules of Marriage, suggests that the change in the nature of what was desired in long-term relationships really began in the 1970s with the women’s movement. Women entered the workplace, became more financially independent, attended consciousness-raising groups, gained a modicum of political power, and discovered in the process that when they brought their innate gifts of empathy and intimacy into their workplaces and relationships, healing would happen, problems would be solved—differently, more easily—and it felt good. Who doesn’t want to feel good? Real says, “We have grafted onto the companionship marriage of the previous century the expectations and mores of a lover relationship—the kind of passion, attention, and emotional closeness that we most commonly associate with youth, and with the early stages of a relationship.”9 The five tactics he suggests for cultivating this kind of relationship are:
Reclaim romantic space. (This is easier to do now, when the children have left home and there is more time and job flexibility.)
Tell the truth. (This is easier for a woman to do if she has confidence and individuation.)
Cultivate sharing. (Intellectually, emotionally, physically, sexually, and spiritually.)
Cherish your partner. (Develop your “lover energy”—the energy that goes into loving. Don’t just feel it; act on it.)
Become partners in health. (Share a commitment to relational practice. As I have said, an intimate, passionate, long-term relationship doesn’t happen spontaneously. It requires commitment to engaging in relational practice.)10
Sociologists say that marriage seems to encourage stability, a sense of obligation to the other, a barrier to loneliness, more financial security because of pooled resources, and better health. “Married people are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer or have heart attacks. A group of Swedish researchers has found that being married or co-habitating at midlife is associated with lower risk for dementia,” notes Tara Parker-Pope, who writes the Well blog for the New York Times. Parker-Pope goes on to say, however, that a bad, stressful marriage can leave a person far worse