Old Love | The Marriage Check-Up - 11/28/07

[Smartmarriages]

- OLD LOVE 
- MARRIAGE STETHOSCOPE

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- OLD LOVE 

This is such a beautiful article, full of rich ideas, information, and
quotes.  And it reminds me to remind you to rent "Away From Her" if you
haven't yet seen it.   - diane

How's this research for encouraging news!:
> It's also that brain researchers say older people may simply be better able to
> deal with the emotional vicissitudes of love. As it ages, the brain becomes
> more programmed to be happy in relationships. . .

> "Young love is about wanting to be happy," she continued. "Old love is about
> wanting someone else to be happy." . . .

> "She was very aware that contradictory things live together," Dukakis said.
> "You can't look at it and say he did it purely for love. It's a complicated
> issue, because there's a lot of life that has been lived. It's not going to be
> simple." . . .

> Those stories would not be without their troubles. Nor would they be without
> rewards. "If you stay married," Pipher said, "there's riches in store that
> nobody 25 years old can imagine."


- Old love: It has its rewards, they say
International Herald Tribune
By Kate Zernike
November 18, 2007

So this, in the end, is what love is.

Suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the husband of Sandra Day O'Connor, a
former Supreme Court justice, has a romance with another woman and O'Connor
is thrilled - even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the
porch swing - because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so
content.

What culture tells us about love is generally young love. Songs and movies
and literature show us the rapture and the betrayal, the breathlessness and
the tears. The O'Connors' story, reported by the couple's son in an
interview with a television station in Arizona, where John O'Connor resides
in an assisted-living center, opened a window onto what might be called, for
comparison's sake, old love.

Of course, it illuminated the relationships that often develop among
Alzheimer's patients - new attachments, some call them - and how the desire
for intimacy persists even when dementia steals so much else.

But in the description of Sandra Day O'Connor's reaction, the story revealed
a poignancy and a richness to love in the later years, providing a rare
model at a time when people are living longer and loving longer.

"This is right up there in terms of the cutting-edge ethical and cultural
issues of late-life love," said Dr. Thomas Cole, director of the McGovern
Center for Health, Humanities and the Human Spirit at the University of
Texas and author of a cultural history of aging.

"We need moral exemplars, not to slavishly imitate, but to help us identify
ways of being in love when you're older."

Historically, love in older age has not been given much of a place in
culture, Cole said. It once conjured images that were distasteful or even
scary: the dirty old man, the erotic old witch.

That is beginning to change, Cole said, as life expectancy increases and a
generation more sexually liberated begins to age. Now nursing homes are
being forced to confront an increase in sexual activity.

And despite the stereotypes, researchers who study emotions across the life
span say that old love is in many ways more satisfying than young love -
even as it is also more complex, as the O'Connors' example shows.

"There's a difference between love as it is presented in movies and music as
this jazzy sexy thing that involves bikini underwear and what love actually
turns out to be," said the psychologist Mary Pipher, whose book "Another
Country" looked at the emotional life of the elderly.

"The really interesting script isn't that people like to have sex," she
said. "The really interesting script is what people are willing to put up
with.

"Young love is about wanting to be happy," she continued. "Old love is about
wanting someone else to be happy."

That's one way to look at it, at any rate. And it's not just that
relationships are seasoned by time and shared memories - although that's
part of it, as is the inertia the researchers call the familiarity effect,
which keeps people from leaving a longtime relationship even though he nags
and she won't ask for directions.

It's also that brain researchers say older people may simply be better able
to deal with the emotional vicissitudes of love. As it ages, the brain
becomes more programmed to be happy in relationships.

Researchers trying to understand aging and emotion performed brain scans on
people across a range of ages, gauging their reactions to positive and
negative scenes. Young people tended to respond to the negative scenes.
Those in middle age took in a better balance of the positive. And older
people responded only to the positive scenes.

"As people get older, they seem to naturally look at the world through
positivity and be willing to accept things that when we're young we would
find disturbing and vexing," said Dr. John Gabrieli, a professor of
cognitive neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one
of the researchers.

It is not rationalization: the reaction is instantaneous.

"Instead of what would be most disturbing for somebody, feeling betrayed or
discomfort, the other thoughts - about how from his perspective it's not
betrayal - can be accommodated much more easily," Gabrieli said.

"It paves the way for you to be sympathetic to the situation from his
perspective, to be less disturbed from her perspective."

Young brains tend to go to extremes - the swooning or sobbing so
characteristic of young love. Old love puts things in soft focus.

"As you get older you begin to recognize that this isn't going to last
forever, for better or for worse," said Dr. Laura Carstensen, director of
the Stanford Center on Longevity and a research counterpart of Gabrieli's in
the brain imaging research. "You understand that the bad times pass and you
understand that the good times pass," Carstensen said. "As you experience
them, they're more precious, they're richer."

Of course, not everyone would show the emotionally generous response that
Sandra Day O'Connor did.

As Cole said, "I have many examples in my mind of people who are just as
jealous, just as infantile, just as filled with irrationality when they fall
in love in their 70s and 80s as she is self-transcendent."

And it still is possible to have a broken heart in old age. But in general,
Carstensen said: "A broken heart looks different in somebody old. You don't
yell and scream and cry all day long like you might if you were 20."

In one of the few cultural examples exploring old love - the film "Away From
Her," based on an Alice Munro short story and released in the spring - the
starting point is similar to the O'Connors' story. A man who cannot imagine
life without his sparkling wife of some decades watches her slip into
Alzheimer's and then a romance with another patient in a nursing home. In
the fictional example, the spousal devotion is such that he arranges for her
new boyfriend to return to the nursing home after seeing how crushed she is
when the man moves away.

But the story is more complex. The husband had a series of affairs years
earlier, so what seems like devotion is also a desire to pay her back and to
ease his own remorse.

For the actress Olympia Dukakis, whose mother had Alzheimer's and who played
the wife of the other man in the film, that wrinkle explains the resonance
of Munro's story.

"She was very aware that contradictory things live together," Dukakis said.
"You can't look at it and say he did it purely for love. It's a complicated
issue, because there's a lot of life that has been lived. It's not going to
be simple."

Still, for all those kinds of complications, those who study aging can only
smile at young lovers who say they never want to become like an old married
couple. Despite the popular preference for young love, the O'Connors'
example suggests that we should all aspire to old love, for better and for
worse.

"Young love is very privileged, and as a culture that may be a mistake,"
Pipher said. "If you want a communal culture where people make sacrifices
for each other and work for the common good, you would have a culture that
privileges the stories of older people."

Those stories would not be without their troubles. Nor would they be without
rewards. "If you stay married," Pipher said, "there's riches in store that
nobody 25 years old can imagine."


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- MARRIAGE STETHOSCOPE

Marriage stethoscope
Telegram & Gazette (Massachusetts)
Nov 28, 2007
Couples in health study find process helps relationships

MODERN LIVING

By Pamela H. Sacks TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

When Lisa Carpenter learned about an opportunity to check on the health of
her marriage, she was intrigued. But she wasn¹t sure how her husband,
George, would react.

³I just caught him at a time he would be receptive, and I ran with it before
he changed his mind,² she said.

Mr. Carpenter recalled that he had no problem with the idea of participating
in James Cordova¹s research on marriage at Clark University in Worcester. ³I
didn¹t really have concerns about doing it,² he said. ³There¹s not really
anything wrong with our marriage, anyway. It¹s a research study. Why not? I
can reinforce to Lisa, ŒHey, we¹re doing pretty well.¹ ²


That was last March. Since then, the Carpenters, who live in Leicester, have
been through the first round of a two-year process as Mr. Cordova, an
associate professor of psychology and marriage researcher, studies what he
calls the Marriage Checkup.

The Carpenters, who have been married 16 years, acknowledged that they¹ve
learned something key about the way they interact at times ‹ receiving an
eye-opener that already has taken the pressure off one area of their
relationship. What they thought was a communication issue turned out to be a
difference in style. She felt he monitored her use of time and questioned
her judgment. He felt she wasted time.

³I¹m spontaneous,² Mrs. Carpenter, 39, said, breaking into a wide smile.
³When I go to the store for bread, I may end up in a clothing store. He¹s
more on task.²

³I¹m really anal about time management,² her 41-year-old husband said.
³After talking about it, I know that. I need to step back and let her manage
her own time.²

Earlier this year, Mr. Cordova was the recipient of a five-year study grant
for $1 million from the National Institutes of Health. The Marriage Checkup
is based on his theory that, given the stresses and strains of an intimate
relationship, marriage perhaps ought to be viewed in the same way as
physical or dental health. The Marriage Checkup is intended to assist
couples in building on strengths and correcting weaknesses. In Mr. Cordova¹s
view, couples often can resolve problems themselves once trouble areas are
identified.

³It¹s appealing to couples that feel like, for the most part, they are doing
well but may have one or two things that are a little bothersome to them
that have been there for a while and want to get a third person¹s
perspective on that.²

In the first round ‹ which involved completing two sets of detailed
questionnaires and participating in two interviews ‹ the Carpenters, who
have two teenage children, came away reassured about the many positive
aspects of their relationship.

³The biggest benefit of it is you realize you are always so busy checking on
food, shelter and the kids,² Mrs. Carpenter said. ³It¹s OK not to always
focus on those things and have fun with each other. It gave us permission to
do that.²

Andrew J. Blanchard, for his part, was hesitant when his wife, Debbie,
suggested they join Mr. Cordova¹s research.

³I didn¹t think there were any problems with the relationship,² said Mr.
Blanchard, 47. ³But she¹s very smart, and I always take what she says and
weigh it.²

Mrs. Blanchard, 46, was frustrated by her husband¹s tendency to clam up when
troubled. ³I would know there was something bothering him, but Andy would
not talk,² she said. That happened when he was unhappy at a previous job.
³He¹s a quiet person by nature, and I¹m not. I would be left in the dark.²

Those who take the Marriage Checkup meet with a doctoral student who has
reviewed the completed questionnaires. The husband and wife talk about why
they married each other, their strengths and what causes them stress. They
are then left alone for 10 minutes to work on solving a problem. As they
proceed, they are videotaped for the study. The tapes are kept confidential.

The Blanchards, who have been married 13 years and live in Gardner, said the
process was cathartic. ³I learned something about myself,² Mr. Blanchard
said. ³Every time we left one of the interviews, we would talk, and there
was no anxiety. I always felt better about communicating.²

The long-term effects of the Marriage Checkup are not yet known, but the
initial data are promising, according to Gregory Stuart, a clinical
psychologist and associate professor of psychiatry at the Alpert Medical
School at Brown University. He noted that the journal Behavior Therapy
published an article in 2005 by Mr. Cordova on a trial in which a control
group was used to gauge the effectiveness of the system.

³He found that, relative to the control group, couples reported improved
scores on greater intimacy, marital satisfaction and acceptance of their
partner,² Mr. Stuart said, adding that the research is in the early stages.
³I could envision this as giving couples a nice little gentle encouragement
to start addressing things in their relationships before they become major
problems.²

Leah and Bob Devine, both 67, have made it through certain challenges ‹
in-laws, for instance ‹ during their 44 years of marriage. The other day,
they sat side by side on their blue-checked living room couch, joking and
laughing as they reminisced. They were surrounded by pictures of their four
children and their grandchildren. For 31 years, Mr. Devine was the librarian
at Auburn High School. Every day, his wife tucked a love note into his
lunchbox.

It was Mr. Devine who suggested they participate in the Marriage Checkup.
³I¹m more private,² Mrs. Devine said. ³I didn¹t really want to,² although
they had conducted counseling for engaged couples connected with their
church and were curious about Mr. Cordova¹s approach.

The Devines acknowledged, as well, that they face new challenges. She has
diabetes, and he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. ³We¹re at the
stage of downsizing,² Mrs. Devine explained. ³We were looking at retirement
communities. We are in great thought right now about these issues.²

Suggestions that came out of the Marriage Checkup included reading about
successful aging and updating their wills. Meanwhile, the Devines have
decided they would prefer to make some alterations and remain in their home
in Millbury. ³We¹re very functional people,² Mrs. Devine said.

Even with a long and loving relationship, the Devines found the Marriage
Checkup very worthwhile.

³It makes you reflect where you¹ve been, and where you¹re going, and what
you¹ve achieved together,² Mr. Devine said with an affectionate glance at
his wife. 

© 2007  Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.

> BIO:  James Cordova earned his PhD at Univ of Washington Seattle and his
> current projects include (1) the Marriage Checkup, a motivational interviewing
> approach to intervening with at-risk couples, (2) observing the process of
> intimacy development in couples' interactions, (3) studying the role of
> emotional skillfulness in relationship health . . . .
> 

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