by Andrew Bard Schmookler

Live and learn, the saying goes. That applies to matters of the heart as well as to anything else. Today I'd like to invite any of you who are willing to call to tell us: how has your life experience brought about changes in the way you understand romance, marriage, divorce-- and such matters of the heart. In fairness, and to get the ball rolling, I've posed that question to myself. And here are some of the thoughts that have arisen. Illusions about the fair sex. Like most guys I know, I grew up with a certain amount of foolishness in my apprehension of girls and women. Some of it might be called sexist, and I suppose it was. But even the sexist notions had some wonderful heartful feelings attached to them. From the culture that surrounded me as I grew up, I gleaned the sense that girls and women were in some fundamental way less capable of great achievement than boys and men. I was never one of those guys that resented a girl's showing her capabilities-- you know, the kind of guy around whom a girl has to pretend to be dumber than she is. I really wanted to have meaningful communication with any girlfriend of mine, the deeper the better. But there was a part of me that would be surprised when a girl or woman did something intellectually quite impressive. In this part of my mind, achievement was a masculine realm. Something we guys did for our girls, to be their heroes. From the age of five onward, my fantasies were of doing great things for some lovely "her," who would admire my deeds, express her gratitude for the heroic way my performance of them protected her, and nurse the wounds I suffered while doing them. Now, I have to confess, I have not altogether abandoned this 1950s cowboy-movie version of the romantic fantasy, but life has taught me a few things since then: that women have minds as capable as men's, that their energy for achievement is as deserving of respect, and that such masculine assumptions of superiority that have been built into our traditional culture do injury to both women and men. I remember years ago having to adjust to things like seeing a female anchor on the network news, and having a woman make an important contribution to a sophisticated discussion, but by now I feel I've pretty fully adjusted my expectations to fit the reality. If that illusion fostered an image of male superiority, I grew up with other illusions that perceived the female as better than the man. As I was growing up, the female seemed somehow a higher being. Did they really go to the bathroom like us? I knew the answer, but part of me didn't really grasp it. Foolishness. Not all girls and women, but those of grace and beauty and charm seemed to that part of me above the mundane sphere of flesh and blood. Now, here I am in my late forties, the father of three children (all of whose births I attended), and of course I've had plenty of opportunities to realize that we are all creatures with beating hearts, bones of deposited calcium, smells good and bad, and carried by time along an inexorable trajectory of the life cycle that will eventually return us and our gifts to dust. But, again, the progress in my understanding, though considerable, remains incomplete. There is still a part of me that holds my old, childish illusions. I remember a couple of years ago, when Audrey Hepburn died of colon cancer, I discerned a foolish place inside me that had a hard time believing that such a lovely creature as I had seen not long before in Roman Holiday had a colon at all, much less one with malignant tumors growing in it. Well, whatever of my beliefs I may regard as folly, I am still very much of the opinion that of all the good things on this earth there are none better, none more to be cherished, than the heart of a good woman. Commitment and its limits. On a less happy note, my own life experience, and that of other people I am close to, has forced me to give serious thought to a question I grew up thinking need not be an issue: divorce. When I was a kid, divorce seemed unthinkable. It was certainly nothing I would ever have to contend with. I remember my parents, on those rare occasions that we encountered a family in which divorce had occurred, speaking in hushed tones, as one would of something secret and somewhat shameful. Something like going to jail for embezzlement: something one would avoid simply by morally resolving to do so. Here I sit now, with the good fortune to be a very happily married man, but it is my second marriage, not the first-and-only I assumed as a child that I'd grow up to have. What have I learned? I've lived in at least two different cultures in America with respect to divorce. My childhood was spent in the commitment-for-better-and-for-worse culture; my young adulthood in the so-long-as-it's-a-good-thing culture. I think both were right and both were wrong. I have no second thoughts about my own divorce. If I'd for-better-or-worsed it, it would have been a terrible mistake. I wonder how many lives of earlier generations were ruined because the exit was so hard to find. But I also think the looser culture of my young adulthood underestimated the value of enduring commitment, and the dangers and damages that can come from breaking up a marriage, especially where children are also involved. Twenty years ago, the phrase "for the sake of the children" as used to justify holding together an unfulfilling marriage I would have regarded with scorn. Today, I've seen enough to be open to the idea that sometimes --though not always-- it points to the course of wisdom. That's some of what life has taught me. Now I'd like to invite you to call and share with us how your life experience has changed your understadning in matters of the heart. ??