Getting a Headlock on Wedlock

By John Leo

Ralph: Something's gone wrong in this bookstore, Wanda. I can't seem to find the Personal Growth section. Wasn't it over here between Gay Studies and Amatory Methodologies?

Wanda: This is the 1980s, Ralph. They took out Personal Growth. Some of the space went to Money Management--those five aisles over there--and the rest went to this new section, Interpersonal Realization.

Ralph: Interpersonal Realization?

Wanda: Books on how to save your marriage. On the right are all the books on how marriage is happy and great, and you have to stick with it. On the left are the books on how marriage can be pretty rough and horrible, but you have to stick with it.

Ralph: It's heartwarming to see the old verities rendered trendy, my love. But what do these books actually say?

Wanda: Most of them you would probably dismiss as inspirational, hardhearted one. Married People: Staying Together in the Age of Divorce says you must accept change and your partner's limitations, that there is no formula, no single recipe for a successful marriage.

Ralph: Life has no easy answers, dearest, but often we must publish anyway. What else is in these books?

Wanda: A lot of them talk about getting the right "comfort zone." That's the amount of emotional space we need. Thank God--It's Monday! or How to Prevent Success from Ruining Your Marriage says that a husband "may feel his wife's comfort zone is too close for comfort." And Carol Botwin, author of Is There Sex After Marriage?, says that when someone steps too far into our comfort zone, we withdraw, sometimes sexually.

Ralph: What are sex books doing here? Don't they belong over there in Amatory Methodologies?

Wanda: Not anymore, Ralph. These are different--they go in the sexual subsection of Interpersonal Realization. For example, this one by Dagmar O'Connor-- How to Make Love to the Same Person for the Rest of Your Life--is not one of those grunt-and-grope books, like The Joy of Sex. As it says on the flap, it's "the book for the Age of Commitment." It's about intimacy and building a great marriage by finding lifelong sexual excitement with your mate.

Ralph: So the sex books that save your marriage are the high-toned ones that don't go into all that messy detail?

Wanda: Unless imaginative sexuality is necessary to save the marriage. Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair with Your Spouse is open-minded about marriage saving, but it frowns on sex that involves welts and bruises.

Ralph: Let's get back to the comfort zone, my beloved. Would it be fair to say that women, the market for these books, are interested in more emotion, conversation, involvement, and that men are remote, coldhearted brutes who slump in the easy chair each night and ignore the little woman?

Wanda: Correcto, Ralph. One book talks about a husband who says "I love you" only when he is naked and horizontal. Another claims that men want to hear "I love you" only once, whereas women want to hear it more than once. It recommends that men say "I love you" three times in a row. That advice appears in The Silicon Syndrome: How to Survive a High-Tech Relationship, by Jean Hollands, but it's really too rough a book to discuss with you, recalcitrant one.

Ralph: Stonehearted hubbies can take anything, Wanda. Fire away.

Wanda: Well, Syndrome is about how to hold a marriage together in Silicon Valley, the natural home of cold, remote engineer-scientist males. Most men | are afraid to show their feelings. The Silicon man doesn't seem to have any. When the wife wants to make some emotional connection, like during a crisis, Silicon man runs up to his brain and sits there a while. Ralph: Surely this is warm jocularity. Perhaps a rich burst of feminist humor?

Wanda: Hollands is serious, and she says Silicon man is everywhere. Her book lists a lot of ways you can chop through the male ice. One of the best is to say "I know that my personality is hard on you." Rapid meltage occurs so regularly that the author calls the sentence "the magic words." She also recommends a verbal exercise for expressing resentment. One partner says, "I resent that you . . ." and then expresses the complaint. The other then responds with three set comments: "Thank you for sharing that. Your saying so may not change my behavior. I'm not going to defend myself."

Ralph: I've heard better dialogue in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

Wanda: Wisecracks make you ineligible for rehabilitation, Ralph. These are sharing exercises, and a lot of the books have them. For instance, Second Marriage: Make It Happy! Make It Last! recommends the two-question rule in marital communication.

Ralph: Just what marriage needs, Wanda, more rules. O.K., how does it work?

Wanda: Let's say I come home and say, "What a day I had!" Nine times out of ten you will say, "Your day! Wait till you hear about my day!" That's no good. What you have to do is ask two concerned questions and recapitulate the emotions I am expressing. It's supposed to go something like this: "What a day I had!" "I figured something was wrong when you weren't home at 6. What happened?" "My boss is putting a lot of pressure on me." "You sound really upset. What kind of pressure is he putting on you?" And so on.

Ralph: Gee, that's great, Wanda. With these books you can conduct entire marital conversations all by yourself. Just think, you can have a meaningful dialogue, in a marriage-saving manner, even before I get home.

Wanda: Maybe you'd better read the book on saving your second marriage, Ralph. You don't seem to be doing too well with this one.

Ralph: Sensitivity is important in a vibrant marriage, my pet. Here I stand, vertical and clothed, saying I love you, I love you, I love you. That's three times. And I ask two caring questions: Why don't we go home? And what's for dinner?

Wanda: When you are through talking, Ralph, look for me over there in Divorce Studies.