by Diane Rehm
Dialogue on the Third Person
JOHN: We're obviously dealing with a painful issue, but with the passage of time I think I can look back on it with a certain objectivity. In doing so, two questions emerge. The most obvious, of course, is why you were drawn to a certain man and I was drawn to a certain woman. And we can certainly talk about that. But for me, the really fascinating question is why in the world we stayed together. I don't recall ever sitting down with you, Diane, and drawing up a kind of calculus —that is, the pros and cons of our staying together. As I recall, we just gritted our teeth and saw it through, without shedding any real light on the problems.
DIANE: Oh no. I recall it differently. I think at one point we were both serious about going our separate ways. It may have been that those two relationships—which we call “the third person” —were simply the culmination of the outpouring of feeling that was taking us away from each other. They were perhaps reflective of all the internal strife that was going on, and our dissatisfaction with each other.
JOHN: Do you recall any instance when with some seriousness we discussed why we were drawn to others? Or why we should remain in the marriage and endure? Do you recall that? I don't. It seems to me we both recognized the centrifugal forces but didn't try to explore them, other than whether we should separate. But I don't even recall an in-depth discussion of that issue.
DIANE: As I said in my essay, I think this is the first time we have talked about it. Don't forget, as I shall never forget, that at one point you decided to move out of the house for a week. You took a room at a hotel downtown. I can't recall the time frame, or whether it was in the midst of all this. All I know is that we were in terrible trouble as a couple.
JOHN: I so vividly recall the taxi driving up for me as I stood at the door holding a small piece of luggage. As the driver reached the end of the block, before he turned the corner, I thought to myself, Why am I doing this? I saw it in a different light, and at that point might have told him to turn around and take me back home. Nevertheless, I did go downtown and stay in a really third-rate hotel. I think it gave me some breathing space. But I want to return to this question. Why did we endure?
DIANE: Why did we endure? For the first time, I think we looked in the face of what it would mean to be separate and on our own. I think we examined what each of us gives to the other, but we did it separately. We didn't sit down and say, “Here are the pros and cons.” It was an internal battle that was going on within each of us. I was angry as hell at your behavior. It seemed to me that you weren't really paying attention to anyone else's feelings but your own. It was as though everything was about you. It was a narcissism that I just couldn't believe, and couldn't tolerate. So I moved into my own world, and began to think in my own terms of life without you, but not thinking about your moving out of the house permanently.
JOHN: But that still doesn't answer my question—
DIANE: Well, what is your answer?
JOHN: I would say, first of all, that your commitment to the relationship, your loyalty, helped me—although at times I resented it. Second, sheer stubbornness. I think in each of us there was a disinclination to give the marriage up and say it had failed. Third, I would certainly have to note the children. At some level, neither of us was willing to break up the family. There was a kind of doggedness that kept us together. Now the question is, was that love? If it was love, it was love of the very unromantic kind. It was a love composed of loyalty and stubbornness. It didn't feel like love. But there was something that kept us going. I look back on that with a sense of marvel.
DIANE: Do you think it was love, at an elemental level?
JOHN: I think my answer would be that, yes, it was love—an aspect of love—a love that places great emphasis on commitment and loyalty, and just plain sticking it out.
DIANE: I think we have now gotten to the heart of these discussions, which is that any relationship at times involves just sticking it out, no matter how difficult those times are. And I'm not talking about times when physical abuse is involved; that is an entirely different situation. But I'm talking about the commitment that is part of what makes love, what creates that bond. I certainly didn't want to see us living separately.
JOHN: But if the reader of our book should ask, “Well, how do you tell if sticking it out makes sense, on balance, and if it doesn't?” I would say it becomes nonrational. Either there's a certain adhesive that remains, or it doesn't. I don't think it would have been a clearly unreasonable or irrational act, Diane, for us to separate. Goodness knows, there were reasons for doing so.
DIANE: You know, it was at a time in this country when divorce was occurring frequently, and people accepted the idea that if your marriage doesn't work, you move on to someone else. But I wasn't about to be a serial marrier. I had had one marriage that failed, I wasn't going to have a second. But you had to be part of that. You keep asking me why we stayed together. I do believe that deep down you have to respond to that question with your heart. It was beyond commitment. There had to be something in you that said, “This marriage is important to who I am.”
JOHN: I think that's well put. The strain in me to be the loner, the fellow who goes off by himself, who endures life as it comes—that did become subordinated to the importance of the family, that is, of you and the children. I guess I grew up and began to identify and value aspects of life in a family which I hadn't fully appreciated before.
DIANE: That's not to say that any relationship fully and completely recovers. One can forgive, but one never forgets; it's something that always dwells somewhere in the mind. Each time a question or a doubt surfaces, I find myself having to actively put it aside. Don't think that forty-two years of marriage are enough to put those feelings aside permanently. At some level, perhaps out of my own sense of insecurity, they'll always be there. You're a wonderful man, an attractive man, people love you. But I will always feel in my heart the resentment that occurred over your relationship with the other woman, when I never believed there could be such a relationship.
JOHN: I also then resented—and time has alleviated this—your relationship with the other man. That was really a terrible blow. It just knocked the underpinnings out of any sense of male pride or sufficiency. It was rough going. My immediate response was to retaliate in some way or to go off by myself. But back to the fundamental question: maybe it's a matter of listening to the heart rather than the head. We could have composed a fairly lengthy list of good reasons why at least a trial separation was in order, but that wasn't quite there for either of us, and the heart seems to have won out.
DIANE: Did you see it happening in my case? Did you know what was happening between me and the third person?
JOHN: I take your statement at face value that your relationship was always in a social group, and in that setting I knew exactly what was going on, but of course I wondered and worried that it might be consummated, which it wasn't.
DIANE: And I worried in the same way. I know you did have several private lunches. It was the public realm that really got to me. I could see what you were doing. I knew when she was in your presence that something was different.
JOHN: Did that knowledge help or hurt?
DIANE: Hurt! It was terrible!
JOHN: Because you felt others were observing the same thing?
DIANE: Absolutely!
JOHN: And therefore you were deeply embarrassed? Humiliated?
DIANE: Exactly. Did you have that sense?
JOHN: Certainly. I was being demeaned in the presence of others who, I was pretty sure, saw what was going on. That made it very difficult.
DIANE: Which made it even more difficult for you and me to talk about it. We couldn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. Perhaps if we had talked about it…
JOHN: It's rather easy to say we should have or might have talked about it, but that would have been very difficult, because in my case, and perhaps in yours, the conversation would have begun from a position of being deeply
wounded. And the wound was sufficiently deep that, with all of our other insecurities, it was almost an unspeakable subject.
DIANE: Well, we've now spoken about it. How do we feel now?
JOHN: I would say that, now that you and I are in a good place, it isn't that painful to look back on. And I think there are some lessons—
DIANE: Such as?
JOHN: Such as the value of looking at the entirety of the relationship —the family and the children—both the good parts and the bad parts. To assess the situation in the larger context, rather than dwell upon the immediate hurt and the immediate desire to lash back.
DIANE: You undermined my feeling of trust in you. That sense of trust vanished for a long time. It was difficult, every time you walked out the door, not to be mistrustful. It has taken me years to get over it.
JOHN: As for me, for a long time you took away my sense—my pride—of being first in your life. You have restored that, as I hope I have regained your trust.
DIANE: You have. I love you, and I trust you will never hurt me in that way again.
Aging
John
According to the time-honored pledge, we marry for richer for poorer, but not for younger or older. Our youth-dominated culture discourages the contemplation of old age. Even when couples are well into their years of marriage, they assume that their mental and physical condition will remain constant. In short, the certainty of old age is either denied or suppressed.
I am seventy-one years old, and Diane is sixty-five. We are in good health, of both mind and body, for which we are deeply grateful. We eat sensibly, drink moderately, and exercise reasonably, favoring walks together. We can still take on, with occasional rests, the steep back roads of northeastern Pennsylvania, where our beloved farm is located. But our bodies remind us, in undramatic but telling ways, that we are no longer in our twenties, thirties, or even forties. We are forced to give increasing attention to the inexorable process of aging.
I foresee two fairly distinct periods ahead of us. In the first, we will largely retain our present degree of freedom. That is, we'll continue to be able to use our minds and bodies with few impediments. Whether we wish to read a book, take a walk, or prepare a meal, our faculties will be available. The mind may not be quite so sharp and the body not quite so agile, but each of us will be up to the normal tasks of every passing day.
In the second period, we'll lose that freedom by degrees. We'll need help getting about. We'll have to be reminded of people and events. We'll be less able to concentrate on words and ideas. In short, we'll be reverting to the needs of childhood and our reliance on others.
I have high hopes for us in each of these two periods, especially after Diane's anticipated retirement in the next few years. In the first period they would include the following:
Enjoy the world while it remains open and accessible to us. This would include such activities as traveling, gardening, and spending time at our farm.
Inquire into, and learn about, new fields, like history, science, and the arts.
Enrich and cultivate relationships with family members and friends.
In the second period, my hopes would include the following:
Help each other to accept—and not deny—our ailments and illnesses.
Maintain a healthy sense of humor about the often undignified frailties of old age.
Learn and tell each other the full medical truth, so that we can help make intelligent decisions.
Implicit in all these hopes is the recognition that old age is part of a spiritual journey. That journey will be sustained by the love and compassion that Diane and I will continue to share throughout old age.
Diane
As I write this, on September 11, 2001, terrorism has struck the United States. The World Trade Center towers have been destroyed in New York City by suicide terrorists flying hijacked American planes, killing thousands of people. The Pentagon has been struck by another hijacked plane, destroying one portion completely, with additional casualties. And a fourth hijacked plane went down outside Pittsburgh, and there is speculation that the target was the White House, the Capitol, or Camp David. The sense of physical security this country has enjoyed up until now has been seriously impaired.
Like many Americans hearing the news today, I realize once again how fragile life can be. No matter how carefully we manage our lives, no matter how many vitamins we take or how often we exercise, no matter how well we care for ourselves and our families, the end of life may be only seconds away. As John and I went for a walk on this sunlit, breezy day here in Washington, we spoke of Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, in which people from different backgrounds, rich and poor, meet their fate as they cross a bridge that can't support them. Dwelling on the factor of chance for even a moment leads me to reflect that all of those people who died today—September 11, 2001—went to their places of business this morning expecting that they would live to see another day.
Now, cherishing each day all the more, I am strangely optimistic about the process, and even the duration, of aging. I say “strangely” because both my parents died when they were young—my mother at forty-nine, my dad at sixty-two. For a long time I was fatalistic, believing that I too would meet an early death. It was difficult for me to approach the age of fifty, and when I passed it, I felt almost guilty to have lived beyond the age when my mother died. That benchmark gave me the gift of freedom. No longer would I have to dwell upon that “deadline”: my life was my own to live, free of the shadows her early death had cast over me.
Now I am sixty-five, having reached a point in life that even my father didn't achieve. I ask myself why. Why did they die so young, and why should I have been given the gift of health, considering their premature endings? The answers I came up with before today were sound and helped me to face the future with optimism.
First, I haven't endured the long illnesses that plagued my mother. She died of cirrhosis of the liver, not as a result of alcohol consumption but as a long-term consequence of the malaria she contracted as a teenager in Egypt, which left her liver severely impaired. She was a depressed and angry woman, which could also have had an adverse effect on her overall health. Second, I quit smoking—in my twenties. My father suffered from extreme high blood pressure. He, like his brothers, was a lifelong smoker. He had difficulty walking because of an inherited foot deformity, so exercise was out of the question. Like his brothers, he died after a heart attack. Finally, thanks to John, I have taken good care of myself, despite the spate of unusual ailments I've experienced.
So here I am, thinking about both the future and the events of this day, which have filled me and the whole country with sadness and fear. Hence my feelings are mixed. There continues to be a certain amount of excitement. Why? Because I know that sometime in the next few years, I'll come to the end of my radio career. It's been rich, wonderful, and enormously rewarding in every way. I've had the honor of speaking with many of the world's most interesting and thoughtful people. I've worked with supportive and savvy producers. I've learned so much about so many topics that I otherwise could never have fathomed. But I know the time is coming when I'll want to move on. Then what? Who knows? But I believe there are new possibilities for growth yet to come. In what context, I cannot imagine, but then again I never imagined a career in radio.
Painting watercolors is something I began doing many years ago, with great pleasure and joy. I haven't had much time for it in the last few years, so I look forward to taking it up again. Also, I've become very interested in writing, and am planning on writing a series of letters to our grandson Benjamin so that he will have a sense of who his grandparents are. John and I haven't seen a great deal of this country, though we've traveled abroad. The older I get, the more I want to enjoy this grand and glorious country of ours, in both a historic and visual sense, and to begin to appreciate its extensive beauty and variety. I hope to be able to get up in the morning and fully read the morning newspaper, and then, in
my nightgown, walk through our garden at a leisurely pace, as I quite often do now on summer mornings, appreciating and tending to the shrubs, trees, and flowers that have become such an important part of my life. I want to spend more time with our children and their families, participating, but never interfering, in their lives. I have so many things I want to do.
Of course, at this age, I also think about the difficulties, both physical and mental, that lie ahead. I'd be kidding myself to say there isn't some feeling of trepidation as I observe how difficult it can be to grow old. John and I have watched as dear friends have steadily weakened physically and yet, with courage, continued to stay mentally alert and active. As my late mother-inlaw used to say, “Growing old is not for sissies.” But she also proclaimed that her eighties had been “the best years of her life.” Had she not suffered from hip problems, I think she would have lived much longer than her ninety-two years.
John is six years older than I. The male life expectancy is six years less than that of a female. But that doesn't take into account the extent to which self-care and modern medicine come into play. John's health is superb. His diet is remarkably restrained and for years he has walked miles every day. I am learning to take better care of myself, to foist fewer obligations on myself, and to allow more time for relaxation. I view each day as a gift, no longer believing as I once did that my life was going to be a short one. My faith gives me a sense of peace about the future, a sense that no matter what lies ahead, even beyond this temporal life, John and I will work to support and care for one another.