I've been thinking lately about John Gottman’s 5:1 magic relationship ratio. This might seem strange, since Gottman’s rule typically applies to married couples, and I’ve been divorced for six months.
What a beautiful, beautiful piece Joshua! The perfect essay to read with my morning coffee (one of the ways I take care of myself). I resonate with so much (actually, everything!) you say here. I am also generation x and I am allergic to the word self- love. But - you are so right. The work begins with ourselves. If we can’t be kind to ourselves, how do we expect others to show kindness, love and compassion towards us? And yes, it is the hardest work. You know what helped me…? In a meditation I saw myself as a young child and I picked her up and carried her. I was weeping when I realized that I had no problem loving my children unconditionally, but forgot to nurture the child in me. And that child, even as a child, was so neglected (did I mention I was gen x?) So this image of myself as a child radically shifted my attitude.
Another thing I’ll say to you as someone who’s been divorced for over a year now. Separation and divorce are hard. So so hard. But as everything stressful in life, they can be an incredible opportunity for growth. I have grown so much as a person the comment section here is not enough to cover it. And - I have a very amicable, respectful relationship with my ex, which I know is rare, and it took a lot of hard work (mostly inner work) to achieve. My daughters are healthier for it. My daughters are inspiring me in their confidence and self respect! So, it might sound crazy, but my divorce is one of the things I’m most proud of!
So I’m wishing you all the strength, self-compassion and joy for this new adventure. It sounds like you are already doing so much growing! And your writing is beautiful. I second how you feel about writing those essays. And it shows. Thank you for this beautiful, generous share! (And I’m honoured to be included)
Thank you, Imola. I do think that solidarity with others is one form that positivity takes. And I have been grateful to writers like you and Latham for helping me know that I'm not alone -- but also that the enormity of what I'm carrying doesn't have to be my focal point. That I can recognize that and still choose to direct my attention elsewhere without simply being avoidant. I think for some time, I've confused optimism with denial.
Thank you for this lovely piece, Joshua! When I was reading your recent piece on narrators in memoir, I kept thinking of a line from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." As a fellow Gen Xer, with our obsession with both cynicism and authenticity, I think it's easy for us to feel like choosing optimism is fake, a mere pretense. But it's not, exactly: It's a skill that takes practice, like any skill.
So, thank you for writing things like this that help me to practice that skill, and hopefully keep my >5:1 ratio on the right side.
Great Vonnegut quote! He was also fond of an anecdote about his uncle, who often reminded them of their happiness with something like, "If this ain't nice, I don't know what is." I suppose we are conditioned by evolution to place more emphasis on our illness and pain, to guard against those things that might finish us off. When we're doing well, we sometimes forget to take note. So part of this skill is recognizing that happiness when it comes, and then choosing to cultivate more of it.
I thought of you and other colleagues while posting a different version of this on LinkedIn. Professional relationships aren't like marriages exactly. But in some ways those relationships are more alike than they are different. There's far too much outsourcing of positivity in higher ed. The president at my former employer once brought in a consultant to help us build a culture of appreciation (in response to low faculty morale). All we really wanted was for HIM to show appreciation. I know leaders take more than their share of criticism, but they really do set the institutional tone. Whether it's possible to foster a workplace that models that 5:1 ratio is another question, but I think it's a reasonable one.
Thank you Josh—for the mention—and for the timely essay on grief and loss. I’m navigating it currently and the subtle ways it creeps in require vigilance and at the same time openness to letting it come. Until hopefully it doesn’t hurt so much.
Dee, you've been a big help to me, so I'm glad that I was able to speak to you at your point of need. Time is part of it. But also that balance you describe between allowing yourself to feel grief without allowing it to take over. Tricky calculus there.
Thank you for this essay. As a recent divorcee, I can attest to the four horsemen flying through my former marriage. Wish I would have discovered that book and concept earlier as well. It wouldn't have saved my marriage, but maybe I could have avoided it altogether. Good luck with your Sweetheart.
Thank you, Davonne! I think every relationship requires enough risk that we can't ever know how it will play out. My own marriage had more than its share of wild cards. But I am grateful to have Gottman's playbook for myself -- and, possibly, for a future partnership. It should be required reading for new couples, especially when kids come along.
I love how expansively you’re thinking about Gottman’s 5:1 rule. What you said about your job really resonated with me. Too many negatives, and it becomes tough to see the positives. Thank you for sharing so much of your story. It has helped me think through so knotty aspects of my own life!
I'm glad it helped a little, Jillian! It's really hard to be working in higher ed right now, especially at institutions with dwindling resources or places where the pandemic fallout is still raining down. My Gen X side tells me that it's always been hard, that nothing worth having is ever easy. But it's the "worth having" part that academe is having trouble answering for a lot of people. Maybe it's fanciful to think that work could ever give us 5 good things for every one that it takes in the form of our talent, time, and energy?
Josh, I love your insight in applying Gottman's ratio to oneself. Especially in trauma or after it, the way everything flies up in a swirl (I'm picturing Aunt Em's house in The Wizard of Oz in the opening tornado), there is wisdom in simple, concrete tools like this ratio. I've often begun to write about my marriage and divorce and then backed away, maybe because the negative/positive energy is still too dark. The subject is more powerful than I am, and I steer toward safer ground - and ground where I have something positive to offer to others. (I would tell someone else that it sounds like this is just the subject that must be written about. Maybe so, maybe so.) The sign that you may be doing better than you think is that you can write about the divorce and all those losses of just a few years ago at all. They don't swamp your writing voice.
You've written beautifully here, as always. You know you're on to something when a Cather passage explains it. :-)
Glad you think applying Gottman to personal growth is novel. I had a feeling that some of what I was saying here had already been said before by many others. But you're certainly right that concrete tools are welcome in trying times.
"The sign that you may be doing better than you think is that you can write about the divorce and all those losses of just a few years ago at all. They don't swamp your writing voice."
Hmmm. That's a helpful take! Further evidence, I suppose, that the pose a memoirist strikes can be aspirational. I didn't feel terribly sunny while writing this, but I believe the voice -- if it lands -- can work in reverse as one of those positive inputs.
This reminds me of Hemingway's phrase, "a clean, well-lighted place." It made sense that a character who'd seen war would want something more orderly. Now I think Hemingway was also talking about what writing meant to him. Time spent in the orderly, all-hours café of the page may be aspirational compared to messy life, but isn't it also phenomenological? In the time it takes to create order, one experiences order? You're right to be wary of gaslighting, but pragmatism is something else, and I think we get to count any experience we can create. That would be "working in reverse as one of those positive inputs." I'm all for that.
Yes, pragmatism. A word to keep at the forefront now.
I have been protecting myself from gaslighting so long that I've come to think of that part of myself as The Guard. I think The Guard has mostly been doing right by me (I generally trust his instincts), and my attempts at pushing him out on the porch before he's ready have not gone well. But I realize that the defensive crouch can harden into its own reality. So many subtle judgment calls.
I think this is very wise. (plus 2 for the positivity of reading your essay and telling my friend what he wrote was wise!)
There's a great Daniel Kahneman/Amos Twersky anecdote dealing with criticism. In the Israeli airforce when a pilot had a bad practice landing, the standard procedure was to yell at the pilot. The next landing would be better by a statistically important significance. So the Air Force concluded criticism was working. Kahneman and Twersky pointed out it was simply reversion to the mean, and of course they were correct.
+2! Yes, I'll take those happily as they come. Thank you.
Your Kahneman/Twersky ancedote is interesting. I had included, but cut, an earlier anecdote about the military, how you can't practice self-love and get through boot camp. But when it comes to improving performance, rather than simply following the chain of command, I think you're right -- yelling has either no effect or a harmful one.
Wonderfully expressed, Josh. When I posted "Photo" on this same date of June 4 for my father who died on June 6 long ago and on the site we share, you said you saw a connection between our pieces. I now see that too though delayed in reading this and glad I made it here today to read.
I definitely agree that idealism is evidence based. After wondering what made some friends of mine turn into complete cynics in the geopolitical sense, I realized that they hadn't inherited the legacy of anti-Communist dissidence as I had. The humanism of Havel, the righteousness of the Polish workers movements, the bravery of Solzhenitsyn, etc. Together, it is an incredible story of genuine hope. However one might critique the flaws of this history and of its individuals, the greater "moral of the story" is that tyranny can be vanquished and here's the evidence to show for it. Friends of mine who lack this see, for instance, the dominance of China and the continued one of the US as world policeman and other totalizing forces symptomatic of the "end of history" epoch. They don't see the same thing I do. And so they despair. This is part of the reason why I continue to celebrate that legacy over at Timeless. To share that legacy with others. Lord knows the world needs it. Unfortunately, the "far away country of which we know little" effect means that it'll be difficult for people further West to find a way to take stock of this possible inheritance.
While I know this won't be of much assistance to those struggling in secular marriages, that marriage therapist isn't wrong about trusting. (Though I agree that one can't just "trust one's way out of a situation" in the "worldly" way you mean) Rather, it is about trusting God. This is one of the crucial reasons why marriage is sacred in Christian tradition: when done right, it is as much about God as it is about one's husband or wife. I won't say any more because from my experience, people who aren't in Christian marriages tend to take it personally when I talk about the sanctity of the Christian marriage. Their anti-Christian hate is so unhinged they think I'm bragging about how superior my faith is. While that's not what I'm doing, I will only say that factually speaking, accounting for the sacred side of marriage makes a huge difference in how it is perceived. Every human society in the world has two commonalities: marriage and funerals. And until recently, every human society was religious and/or spiritual in some form or another. Secular marriage is not the historical norm even though it might feel that way to many Americans. Dietrich von Hildebrand's book about Marriage is a great place to learn more about marriage from a Catholic perspective. If you're interested.
As for the positivity/negativity dichotomy, I think a lot of damage has been caused by the "advice" given to so many that arguing is a norm in marriage. I understand that what they're really trying to say is: "arguing is inevitable in some form or another, don't pretend it's all smiles all the time." I get that. But it's one thing to intend something with an argument, it's another thing when different people process it differently after it is repeated ad nauseum in the culture. And I think that argument, on the whole, has normalized people into believing that couples bickering all the time is not only normal, but a net positive. That is a lie. "Communicate" is not an identical synonym of "argue." There are many happy marriages where there is a minimum of arguing and bickering and positive cooperation is the norm; as long as that's true, then the negativity argument cannot prevail except in bad faith. Unfortunately, these happy stories aren't shared around as much. I'm getting married in August. And all the advice I've gotten from the American side is designed to predict the inevitability of divorce, which is - to put it very mildly - intensely unhelpful. (And, in the case of kids, gaslight me into viewing raising kids as a living hell) I had to push back at some point and say "I'm not getting married so as to divorce; I'm getting married in order to get married." While I think we can recognize that we can't be gullible and naive about the happiness of marriage, we can also recognize that by accepting all this negative baggage as the benevolent norm and denying the existence of positive and beautiful marriages even as they unquestionably exist in the real world is intellectual sabotage.
There is a very underrated work of literature by the one and only Bohumil Hrabal called the Marriage Trilogy. (In-House Weddings, Vita Nuova and Gaps are the titles in order) In addition to being as rich and masterful as Hrabal's other work, it tells the story of Hrabal's marriage from the perspective of his wife. It's beautiful because in order to write an entire trilogy about it in such rich detail, he had to be very, very close to his wife and have the kind of positive marriage needed for such a thing. I don't know if it's an ideal read following a divorce, although it is if one doesn't want to believe marriage is bogus. It's a positive work of art. But it's definitely one for the list. Especially if you're seeking great Czech lit.
Always appreciate your unique take, Felix. I hear what you're saying about Christian marriages. I've seen plenty of men hide behind the sacred as an excuse to put in less effort, and abusers love using structures like that to guilt and shame their partners. But for two people who genuinely believe, I can see how faith adds both meaning and ballast to a marriage.
I hope that my story does not add to the anti-marriage narratives you're hearing. Marriage is beautiful. You wedding will be beautiful. There should be no shadow over it. I was married for nearly 12 years. Some of those years were happy, and the happiest moments were the best of my life.
I'd love to read that Hrabal trilogy. I expect it is told in good humor, as his work usually is. And you are quite right that Czech history is a tonic that many Americans don't know they need.
Thanks Josh. Not to worry, your posts are fomenting no such narratives. I think discussing divorce is a double edged sword in that it can make people pessimistic while at the same time provide much-needed lessons. But the value of the latter outweighs the influence of the former.
In any case, the pressure isn't that strong on my fiancée and I. Attitudes are very different in Poland; while some acutely snobby anti-natal narratives have arisen in a few corners where children are concerned, marriage isn't under attack the way it is in the US. And even if it was, we're both on the same page. Given how cynical my generation is about marriage, the fact that I'm getting married at all is - in my view, anyway - proof that those narratives and their accompanying shadows haven't seized the day. I'm very much pro the rehabilitation of marriage. But I understand where a lot of people my age are coming from as well.
The Wedding trilogy is, indeed, told in good humor.
One thing I can't resist adding, Polonius-like, is that any contemporary marriage ought to begin with some very frank talk about work and domestic labor. This seems to be the primary wedge between couples these days, and if you find yourself behind that particular 8-ball, it can feel like a curse. And it's not the kind of conversation that can be had once and for all, but requires ongoing calibration. A lot depends on the two people, the expectations they bring, how clearly those expectations are communicated, and how well the two evolve together.
As I've said elsewhere, Gottman provides an excellent playbook that could be just as fun when things are sunny and could be a reference for any warning signs while there's still time to course correct.
This is what I'd have said to myself 13 years ago, at any rate.
What a beautiful, beautiful piece Joshua! The perfect essay to read with my morning coffee (one of the ways I take care of myself). I resonate with so much (actually, everything!) you say here. I am also generation x and I am allergic to the word self- love. But - you are so right. The work begins with ourselves. If we can’t be kind to ourselves, how do we expect others to show kindness, love and compassion towards us? And yes, it is the hardest work. You know what helped me…? In a meditation I saw myself as a young child and I picked her up and carried her. I was weeping when I realized that I had no problem loving my children unconditionally, but forgot to nurture the child in me. And that child, even as a child, was so neglected (did I mention I was gen x?) So this image of myself as a child radically shifted my attitude.
Another thing I’ll say to you as someone who’s been divorced for over a year now. Separation and divorce are hard. So so hard. But as everything stressful in life, they can be an incredible opportunity for growth. I have grown so much as a person the comment section here is not enough to cover it. And - I have a very amicable, respectful relationship with my ex, which I know is rare, and it took a lot of hard work (mostly inner work) to achieve. My daughters are healthier for it. My daughters are inspiring me in their confidence and self respect! So, it might sound crazy, but my divorce is one of the things I’m most proud of!
So I’m wishing you all the strength, self-compassion and joy for this new adventure. It sounds like you are already doing so much growing! And your writing is beautiful. I second how you feel about writing those essays. And it shows. Thank you for this beautiful, generous share! (And I’m honoured to be included)
Thank you, Imola. I do think that solidarity with others is one form that positivity takes. And I have been grateful to writers like you and Latham for helping me know that I'm not alone -- but also that the enormity of what I'm carrying doesn't have to be my focal point. That I can recognize that and still choose to direct my attention elsewhere without simply being avoidant. I think for some time, I've confused optimism with denial.
Glad to be walking this road together.
Yes, absolutely! I’m here, walking beside you Joshua. You are for sure not alone! So glad you have written this piece.
Thank you for this lovely piece, Joshua! When I was reading your recent piece on narrators in memoir, I kept thinking of a line from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." As a fellow Gen Xer, with our obsession with both cynicism and authenticity, I think it's easy for us to feel like choosing optimism is fake, a mere pretense. But it's not, exactly: It's a skill that takes practice, like any skill.
So, thank you for writing things like this that help me to practice that skill, and hopefully keep my >5:1 ratio on the right side.
Great Vonnegut quote! He was also fond of an anecdote about his uncle, who often reminded them of their happiness with something like, "If this ain't nice, I don't know what is." I suppose we are conditioned by evolution to place more emphasis on our illness and pain, to guard against those things that might finish us off. When we're doing well, we sometimes forget to take note. So part of this skill is recognizing that happiness when it comes, and then choosing to cultivate more of it.
I thought of you and other colleagues while posting a different version of this on LinkedIn. Professional relationships aren't like marriages exactly. But in some ways those relationships are more alike than they are different. There's far too much outsourcing of positivity in higher ed. The president at my former employer once brought in a consultant to help us build a culture of appreciation (in response to low faculty morale). All we really wanted was for HIM to show appreciation. I know leaders take more than their share of criticism, but they really do set the institutional tone. Whether it's possible to foster a workplace that models that 5:1 ratio is another question, but I think it's a reasonable one.
Thank you Josh—for the mention—and for the timely essay on grief and loss. I’m navigating it currently and the subtle ways it creeps in require vigilance and at the same time openness to letting it come. Until hopefully it doesn’t hurt so much.
Time. 🙏
Dee, you've been a big help to me, so I'm glad that I was able to speak to you at your point of need. Time is part of it. But also that balance you describe between allowing yourself to feel grief without allowing it to take over. Tricky calculus there.
🙏
Thank you for this essay. As a recent divorcee, I can attest to the four horsemen flying through my former marriage. Wish I would have discovered that book and concept earlier as well. It wouldn't have saved my marriage, but maybe I could have avoided it altogether. Good luck with your Sweetheart.
Thank you, Davonne! I think every relationship requires enough risk that we can't ever know how it will play out. My own marriage had more than its share of wild cards. But I am grateful to have Gottman's playbook for myself -- and, possibly, for a future partnership. It should be required reading for new couples, especially when kids come along.
Noted! I'll pick up a copy.
I love how expansively you’re thinking about Gottman’s 5:1 rule. What you said about your job really resonated with me. Too many negatives, and it becomes tough to see the positives. Thank you for sharing so much of your story. It has helped me think through so knotty aspects of my own life!
I'm glad it helped a little, Jillian! It's really hard to be working in higher ed right now, especially at institutions with dwindling resources or places where the pandemic fallout is still raining down. My Gen X side tells me that it's always been hard, that nothing worth having is ever easy. But it's the "worth having" part that academe is having trouble answering for a lot of people. Maybe it's fanciful to think that work could ever give us 5 good things for every one that it takes in the form of our talent, time, and energy?
Josh, I love your insight in applying Gottman's ratio to oneself. Especially in trauma or after it, the way everything flies up in a swirl (I'm picturing Aunt Em's house in The Wizard of Oz in the opening tornado), there is wisdom in simple, concrete tools like this ratio. I've often begun to write about my marriage and divorce and then backed away, maybe because the negative/positive energy is still too dark. The subject is more powerful than I am, and I steer toward safer ground - and ground where I have something positive to offer to others. (I would tell someone else that it sounds like this is just the subject that must be written about. Maybe so, maybe so.) The sign that you may be doing better than you think is that you can write about the divorce and all those losses of just a few years ago at all. They don't swamp your writing voice.
You've written beautifully here, as always. You know you're on to something when a Cather passage explains it. :-)
Glad you think applying Gottman to personal growth is novel. I had a feeling that some of what I was saying here had already been said before by many others. But you're certainly right that concrete tools are welcome in trying times.
"The sign that you may be doing better than you think is that you can write about the divorce and all those losses of just a few years ago at all. They don't swamp your writing voice."
Hmmm. That's a helpful take! Further evidence, I suppose, that the pose a memoirist strikes can be aspirational. I didn't feel terribly sunny while writing this, but I believe the voice -- if it lands -- can work in reverse as one of those positive inputs.
This reminds me of Hemingway's phrase, "a clean, well-lighted place." It made sense that a character who'd seen war would want something more orderly. Now I think Hemingway was also talking about what writing meant to him. Time spent in the orderly, all-hours café of the page may be aspirational compared to messy life, but isn't it also phenomenological? In the time it takes to create order, one experiences order? You're right to be wary of gaslighting, but pragmatism is something else, and I think we get to count any experience we can create. That would be "working in reverse as one of those positive inputs." I'm all for that.
Yes, pragmatism. A word to keep at the forefront now.
I have been protecting myself from gaslighting so long that I've come to think of that part of myself as The Guard. I think The Guard has mostly been doing right by me (I generally trust his instincts), and my attempts at pushing him out on the porch before he's ready have not gone well. But I realize that the defensive crouch can harden into its own reality. So many subtle judgment calls.
Yes, well said. I've given my Guard too many sleeping tonics, so I'm hardly one to advise or judge! 😅
Josh,
I think this is very wise. (plus 2 for the positivity of reading your essay and telling my friend what he wrote was wise!)
There's a great Daniel Kahneman/Amos Twersky anecdote dealing with criticism. In the Israeli airforce when a pilot had a bad practice landing, the standard procedure was to yell at the pilot. The next landing would be better by a statistically important significance. So the Air Force concluded criticism was working. Kahneman and Twersky pointed out it was simply reversion to the mean, and of course they were correct.
+2! Yes, I'll take those happily as they come. Thank you.
Your Kahneman/Twersky ancedote is interesting. I had included, but cut, an earlier anecdote about the military, how you can't practice self-love and get through boot camp. But when it comes to improving performance, rather than simply following the chain of command, I think you're right -- yelling has either no effect or a harmful one.
Wonderfully expressed, Josh. When I posted "Photo" on this same date of June 4 for my father who died on June 6 long ago and on the site we share, you said you saw a connection between our pieces. I now see that too though delayed in reading this and glad I made it here today to read.
Thank you, Mary!
Lateral thinking. DIG it.
Thanks for reading!
I definitely agree that idealism is evidence based. After wondering what made some friends of mine turn into complete cynics in the geopolitical sense, I realized that they hadn't inherited the legacy of anti-Communist dissidence as I had. The humanism of Havel, the righteousness of the Polish workers movements, the bravery of Solzhenitsyn, etc. Together, it is an incredible story of genuine hope. However one might critique the flaws of this history and of its individuals, the greater "moral of the story" is that tyranny can be vanquished and here's the evidence to show for it. Friends of mine who lack this see, for instance, the dominance of China and the continued one of the US as world policeman and other totalizing forces symptomatic of the "end of history" epoch. They don't see the same thing I do. And so they despair. This is part of the reason why I continue to celebrate that legacy over at Timeless. To share that legacy with others. Lord knows the world needs it. Unfortunately, the "far away country of which we know little" effect means that it'll be difficult for people further West to find a way to take stock of this possible inheritance.
While I know this won't be of much assistance to those struggling in secular marriages, that marriage therapist isn't wrong about trusting. (Though I agree that one can't just "trust one's way out of a situation" in the "worldly" way you mean) Rather, it is about trusting God. This is one of the crucial reasons why marriage is sacred in Christian tradition: when done right, it is as much about God as it is about one's husband or wife. I won't say any more because from my experience, people who aren't in Christian marriages tend to take it personally when I talk about the sanctity of the Christian marriage. Their anti-Christian hate is so unhinged they think I'm bragging about how superior my faith is. While that's not what I'm doing, I will only say that factually speaking, accounting for the sacred side of marriage makes a huge difference in how it is perceived. Every human society in the world has two commonalities: marriage and funerals. And until recently, every human society was religious and/or spiritual in some form or another. Secular marriage is not the historical norm even though it might feel that way to many Americans. Dietrich von Hildebrand's book about Marriage is a great place to learn more about marriage from a Catholic perspective. If you're interested.
As for the positivity/negativity dichotomy, I think a lot of damage has been caused by the "advice" given to so many that arguing is a norm in marriage. I understand that what they're really trying to say is: "arguing is inevitable in some form or another, don't pretend it's all smiles all the time." I get that. But it's one thing to intend something with an argument, it's another thing when different people process it differently after it is repeated ad nauseum in the culture. And I think that argument, on the whole, has normalized people into believing that couples bickering all the time is not only normal, but a net positive. That is a lie. "Communicate" is not an identical synonym of "argue." There are many happy marriages where there is a minimum of arguing and bickering and positive cooperation is the norm; as long as that's true, then the negativity argument cannot prevail except in bad faith. Unfortunately, these happy stories aren't shared around as much. I'm getting married in August. And all the advice I've gotten from the American side is designed to predict the inevitability of divorce, which is - to put it very mildly - intensely unhelpful. (And, in the case of kids, gaslight me into viewing raising kids as a living hell) I had to push back at some point and say "I'm not getting married so as to divorce; I'm getting married in order to get married." While I think we can recognize that we can't be gullible and naive about the happiness of marriage, we can also recognize that by accepting all this negative baggage as the benevolent norm and denying the existence of positive and beautiful marriages even as they unquestionably exist in the real world is intellectual sabotage.
There is a very underrated work of literature by the one and only Bohumil Hrabal called the Marriage Trilogy. (In-House Weddings, Vita Nuova and Gaps are the titles in order) In addition to being as rich and masterful as Hrabal's other work, it tells the story of Hrabal's marriage from the perspective of his wife. It's beautiful because in order to write an entire trilogy about it in such rich detail, he had to be very, very close to his wife and have the kind of positive marriage needed for such a thing. I don't know if it's an ideal read following a divorce, although it is if one doesn't want to believe marriage is bogus. It's a positive work of art. But it's definitely one for the list. Especially if you're seeking great Czech lit.
Always appreciate your unique take, Felix. I hear what you're saying about Christian marriages. I've seen plenty of men hide behind the sacred as an excuse to put in less effort, and abusers love using structures like that to guilt and shame their partners. But for two people who genuinely believe, I can see how faith adds both meaning and ballast to a marriage.
I hope that my story does not add to the anti-marriage narratives you're hearing. Marriage is beautiful. You wedding will be beautiful. There should be no shadow over it. I was married for nearly 12 years. Some of those years were happy, and the happiest moments were the best of my life.
I'd love to read that Hrabal trilogy. I expect it is told in good humor, as his work usually is. And you are quite right that Czech history is a tonic that many Americans don't know they need.
Thanks Josh. Not to worry, your posts are fomenting no such narratives. I think discussing divorce is a double edged sword in that it can make people pessimistic while at the same time provide much-needed lessons. But the value of the latter outweighs the influence of the former.
In any case, the pressure isn't that strong on my fiancée and I. Attitudes are very different in Poland; while some acutely snobby anti-natal narratives have arisen in a few corners where children are concerned, marriage isn't under attack the way it is in the US. And even if it was, we're both on the same page. Given how cynical my generation is about marriage, the fact that I'm getting married at all is - in my view, anyway - proof that those narratives and their accompanying shadows haven't seized the day. I'm very much pro the rehabilitation of marriage. But I understand where a lot of people my age are coming from as well.
The Wedding trilogy is, indeed, told in good humor.
One thing I can't resist adding, Polonius-like, is that any contemporary marriage ought to begin with some very frank talk about work and domestic labor. This seems to be the primary wedge between couples these days, and if you find yourself behind that particular 8-ball, it can feel like a curse. And it's not the kind of conversation that can be had once and for all, but requires ongoing calibration. A lot depends on the two people, the expectations they bring, how clearly those expectations are communicated, and how well the two evolve together.
As I've said elsewhere, Gottman provides an excellent playbook that could be just as fun when things are sunny and could be a reference for any warning signs while there's still time to course correct.
This is what I'd have said to myself 13 years ago, at any rate.
Thanks! Very much agree about calibration, and I think Heraclitus would too.