study confirms in-laws are the chief cause of divorces
Data in the 2004 National Population and Family Development Board study in Malaysia revealed that “meddlesome in-laws” are the number one reason why Indian couples get divorced. Ironically, most of these marriages were arranged by the same in-laws who later cause conflict with the spouses they once chose.
* Between Ezra’s athletic prowess and two weeks of delivered Zone meals, I was able to lose most of my pregnancy weight pretty quickly. The Zone works. If you’re frugal, you will feel compelled to follow the program and not cheat, because it’s expensive. You will also be hungry. Very hungry. Around noon on the first day of my delivered meals, I called the company to make sure I understood the system properly. “So you guys deliver one meal at a time?” Apparently, I had eaten the entire first day’s meals for breakfast. Lunch and dinner were so small, I assumed they were garnishes.
* I had to ask Jeff the names; there’s no way I could ever remember them all.
* “New York City is the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, [it’s] like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time and some twenty-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing. Asians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Indians, Russians, Spanish people, and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?”
* I might actually have said, “If you insist upon coaching ever again, I’m going to divorce you and you’re going to scar your child for life, asshole!”
* On average, the best-paying sports scholarship is men’s ice hockey ($21,755). Baseball is the second-lowest men’s sport ($5,806).
* High-contact sports like soccer, football, and hockey are considered verboten by most pediatric nephrologists, but both baseball and basketball fall into the medium-contact range. Some of our nephrologist’s patients even have special protective padding made to allow them and their parents peace of mind when participating in those activities. If Ezra really does continue, he’ll face pitches going upward of 60 miles per hour, so I keep the phone number of an orthotics specialist on my desk.
10
• • • •
They’re Not Our Fathers’
Fathers-in-Law
“Serpentine, Sheldon, serpentine!”
—PETER FALK’S SAGE ADVICE TO ALAN ARKIN,
THE IN-LAWS
Meet the Parents: for some it’s a hilarious movie, but for others it’s a much more serious proposition. In Kyrgyzstan one-third of marriages are initiated by the kidnapping of a bride from her parents’ home. The night of the abduction she is spirited away to the home of her new family. Her would-be in-laws are charged with persuading the intended bride to stay overnight. If they succeed, the deal is pretty much sealed. Apparently their cajoling goes something like this: “Everyone thinks you’re a big fat whore now, so why put up a fight?” It may not be elegant, but it’s damn persuasive. In Botswana, the entire family, led by the groom’s parents, assembles to petition a bride’s family in a lengthy dowry-negotiating process. “Hey, you want her, put up or shut up.” She’s like an NBA free agent.
For people like us who live two thousand seven hundred and fifty-one miles away from one set of in-laws and one thousand four hundred and thirty and a half miles from the other (not that we’ve done the math), we’re coming up with new ways to screw it up.
He Says
Last December, I was on my way to LAX, which, depending on traffic, is about two or three light-years from where we live in Hollywood, to pick up my mother-in-law—that’s right, I said I was picking up my mother-in-law from the airport, all by myself. Before I got married I was always of the mind that two parents were plenty and shuddered at the thought of having to deal with another set. Parents were the enriched fluffy white bread to my artesian whole-wheat, flaxseed, gluten-free, Kalamata olive loaf. What could possibly be less romantic than interacting with your in-laws? Having tea with the Taliban? Catching the swine flu? Watching I’m a Celebrity … Get Me out of Here? In-laws are a relationship of obligation and that was what I was always trying to get away from my whole life. But, and this is the bottom line, if you’re going to get married, then having in-laws is inevitable, like jury duty, rain after you’ve just gotten your car washed, and acid reflux the millisecond you turn forty.
Meeting Annabelle’s folks did not bode well for me because historically I don’t make the best first impression. Let’s not forget that for half a decade Annabelle wasn’t sure whether she should date me or have me arrested for stalking her. On the other hand, it’s true that once people get to know me a little more, they really warm up to me, except, of course, my own parents. Unfortunately, because my in-laws live so far away, it would be next to impossible for us to spend enough time together for them to get over the horrible first impression and grow to like me, so I figured the whole thing was doomed from the get-go.
The first time we met was in San Francisco. They were in town for Passover to pay homage to Judaism’s own Lisa Gurwitch and her family. Meeting my in-laws-to-be at a seder had all the makings of a disaster of a biblical proportion. Besides family and religion, the only thing missing from the trifecta of things that turn me into a cynical, sarcastic, belligerent asshole is musical theater. That piece of the puzzle was solved when Lisa instructed us to begin the Passover meal by singing “There’s No Seder Like Our Seder” to the tune of “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” I also noticed that Annabelle’s mother, Shirley, asks a lot of questions. I’m talking peppering anyone within earshot with inquiries the way antiaircraft guns fire thousands of rounds of artillery into the sky to shoot down an enemy bomber. Did I write for TV or film? Did I usually work during the day or night? Did I work at home or in an office? Did I drive to work? How far was my drive from my house? Did the building have parking? Were the bathrooms nice? Where did I go for lunch? Was I a vegetarian? Is chicken still considered meat? Are your friends writers too? Where do they work? Do you ever work with them? Are most writers vegetarians? Do they eat chicken? How far do your friends have to drive to get to work and what are their names and addresses? I could barely answer one query before the next was fired off. Finally, I gave up and without saying a word I got up from the table and walked away in the middle of dipping the bitter herbs.
Annabelle’s dad was another story altogether. At six feet four, Harry Gurwitch is a mammoth of a man, born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, and with his gruff southern baritone drawl, he comes off like a Jewish Foghorn Leghorn: “I say, I say, Jeff, do you like to smoke them Cuban cee-gars?” “I bet y’all play lots of golf out there in sunny Californ-i-a.” “I say, Jeff, you ever attend one of those legendary Los Angeles airport-adjacent gentlemen’s clubs?” I hate cigars, never golf, and was not about to swap any strip club shop talk with my future father-in-law, so I did my best to keep changing the subject to Miami sports teams: Dolphins, Heat, Marlins, Panthers, even jai alai. I also couldn’t help observing that more than golf, cigars, and even strip clubs, Harry’s greatest love is food, and he seemed to be on an almost spiritual quest to keep eating it every chance he got. There was breakfast, postbreakfast snack, pre-lunch treat, lunch, late lunch nibble, predinner appetizer, dinner, dessert, and the before-bedtime nosh.
The next day Harry and I went off to spend some bonding mealtimes together, starting with the after-breakfast snack. Alone at last, the big guy overshared with me his proclivity for a couple of the famous body parts of Halle Berry. During our predinner appetizer, we began to disagree about politics (Harry’s an anti-gun control, antitax, probusiness Republican), so Harry switched gears and pitched me his idea for a TV show. It was about a bookish lawyer lady. By day she’s a boring banker, but at night she sheds her Brooks Brothers business suit, pantyhose, and briefcase for latex heels, whips, and chains and makes a killing as the city’s most notorious dominatrix. With Harry’s southern pronunciation,
dominatrix sounds more like “domin-a-tricks.” I knew I was sounding snarky when I told him that it could be called Law & Order, S&M. Harry missed my ironic tone and, thinking I was being sincere, offered me the job of head writer when he and I sold Law & Order, S&M to a network for millions of dollars.
I never expected my in-laws to like me. We have practically nothing in common except that we all love, adore, and are annoyed by Annabelle. Thirteen years into our marriage and objectively speaking, I’m not a good son-in-law at all. I see them only once or twice a year; I don’t call them very much and never send them cards on their birthdays or anniversaries, but for some reason they seem to really love me. A lot! The only explanation I can think of is that I had inadvertently set the bar so low with my in-laws when I first met them that it takes only the smallest gesture of goodwill to endear myself to them. In fact, if I do anything, if I throw Harry and Shirley any kind of bone, such as sending them some photographs of Ezra, they are so eternally grateful for them that it actually makes me feel completely guilty for not doing more in the first place, which makes me want to do more for them and that’s exactly why I was going to pick up my mother-in-law at the airport. I volunteered. I’m so guilt ridden I actually want to do it. Also, because Harry and Shirley live so far away from us, there is no way they can just drop by every Sunday afternoon the way my grandparents, Katie and Pat, did for my entire childhood. Without the geographic proximity and weekly visitations, familial provocations and tensions are vastly reduced and in their place there is something I call distance empathy. By the time I finally see them, I have accumulated almost a grain silo full of compassion for my in-laws. And to top it off, there is their grandchild to add to the mix. This is what I refer to as the “Ferrari factor.” That is, if you’re lucky enough to own a Ferrari and get to drive it every day, eventually it becomes just the car you drive even though to everyone else on the road “you’re driving a fucking-a Ferrari, bro!” For me, that Ferrari is Ezra. I get to see and be with him every day, but his grandparents get to drive the King of Cute so rarely that I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that it’s something they live for. Consequently, when either of them comes to LA, I really want them to be able to take a turn behind the wheel of that truly amazing entity Ezra.
So last December, when I finally arrived at LAX to get Shirley, she was nearly jumping out of her skin with excitement. Annabelle had signed up our son to attend a cotillion, as if there’s nothing a ten-and-half-year-old boy wants to do more than put on a suit and tie and dance the fox trot and the waltz with an equally formal, white-gloved ten-year-old girl. My wife had a theory—she always has a theory—that a cotillion, although as obsolete as pay phones and GM, could instill in Ezra the importance of social courtesy and allow him to slowly ease his way toward being with girls. As with most theories, this one didn’t stand a chance in reality. The cotillion is basically a preteen Best of Show—fine for the parents of the young pups to come ogle their offspring and take numerous embarrassing photos, but unnatural and torturous for the little ones. For the upcoming Cotillion Christmas Dance, boys were to dance with their mothers and girls with their dads. Unfortunately—or conveniently, depending on how you see these things—Annabelle was leaving for a job in New York on the same afternoon, so she suggested that her mom, Shirley, come to town and be her Cotillion Christmas Dance replacement. By her reaction, it was as if Shirley had just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. And now, as she and I headed from LAX to our house in the hills of Los Feliz, she had, depending on traffic, a two-to three-light-year car ride home to ask me questions about the cotillion, and I was helpless to escape. “When does it start? How long does it take to get there from your house? What will Ezra wear? Does he know all the dances? When do I get my turn to dance with Ezra? How many boys and girls take part in the cotillion and what are their names and addresses?”
The next day it was up to me to get my mother-in-law and Ezra ready and over to the dance and document the whole thing with photographs. The pictures tell the story, Shirley all smiles and joy towering over Ezra as they danced. He looks embarrassed, incredulous, and silly with laughter and pain as he tried to keep his balance with his grandmother accidentally stepping on his feet half the time. Shirley, conversely, appears to be tripping on ecstasy. Ezra’s cotillion was her Woodstock.
I knew that Ezra hated the cotillion from the depths of his soul, and after that Christmas dance, he never stepped foot, let alone danced, in that hall again. Shirley, on the other hand, had no idea how much he loathed going. To make his grandmother happy, Ezra put up an excellent façade, making sure that he played the part of the good and loving grandson. I know exactly where he gets this talent. I witnessed it the first time Annabelle met my parents before we were married. She transformed herself: she was spunky Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary meets lovable Julia Roberts in Notting Hill. She was parental catnip, completely irresistible.
My parents have been separated since the early 1980s, and although amicable, they live very distinct lives. The first one to meet her was my mother, who views all interpersonal relationships through the prism of a Hallmark card that’s been soaked in maple syrup and dusted with sugar. My mom treats Valentine’s Day with the same sense of tribute as the Fourth of July and with even more reverence than the highest of the High Holy Days, Yom Kippur. She flew out to LA, and my tough-minded, unsentimental, all-business Annabelle took my mom on long meaningful hikes and intimate lunches, basically hitting all the right notes that ensured she would live up to my mother’s idealized, saccharine picture of mother-daughter-in-lawdom.
And again, when Annabelle went to Albany to meet my dad, she was nothing short of brilliant. I was extremely anxious about her meeting him because although my dad can be delightful, warm, and very funny, he can also be harshly judgmental, fundamentally suspicious, and so highly prize his own opinions that he can make Nancy Grace seem as tolerant as Wolf Blitzer. Yet there was Annabelle, fearlessly engaging him on his home turf.
Conversely, I reverted to my twelve-year-old self when I thought that I had lost my expensive new sunglasses. They were Oliver Peoples sunglasses and I cherished them. My father pushed a pair of his sunglasses at me, claiming they were as fashionable and provided just as much UV protection, meaning they were ugly as sin and were purchased at a local Albany drugstore around the time of the Iranian hostage crisis. Then he took me aside and sternly reprimanded me for making way too big a deal about it, which had the effect of making me act even more like a preteen.
Living distinct lives doesn’t stop my parents from presenting a united front when it comes to chastising me, and pushing all of my emotional and psychological buttons. After my dad called my mom to tell her about “the sunglass incident,” she called me in a state of sheer panic. Fearing that my appalling conduct would cause Annabelle to call off the wedding, she advised me to run out and buy her a dozen roses, a Hallmark card, and a cute, cuddly stuffed teddy bear wearing a T-shirt that had “I Wub U” written on it and beg her forgiveness. I was in the absurd, incredibly awkward position of defending myself to my parents by claiming that Annabelle, whom they practically worshipped, had her faults just as I did. So not only was I a jerk about the lost sunglasses, but I was also being a dick about my parents’ fondness for Annabelle. It was John Mahoney all over again! He was the boy my parents were constantly comparing me to when I was growing up. John Mahoney gets all A’s. John does all his homework right away when he gets home from school. John always gets the lead in the school play. John’s the class president and quarterback of the football team. He makes his bed every day after he’s finished all his morning chores. John Mahoney doesn’t get detention, play with firecrackers, talk back to his parents, or fight with his sister. I never could figure out how my parents knew so much about John Mahoney. And now Annabelle could do no wrong, according to them. Was she going to be my marital John Mahoney?
During the more than fourteen years since meeting my parents, she’
s proved that John Mahoney she is not. Annabelle, with her heartfelt and captivating original encounter with my parents, had set the bar way too high. After her pitch-perfect first impression, everything she’s done since seems to pale in comparison. Expectations set that loftily can only be met with disappointment, like Gretchen Mol’s career after the 1998 Vanity Fair cover. There was no way Annabelle would be able to keep up with my mother’s virtually religious devotion to schmaltziness. Annabelle is solidly indifferent to all noneating holidays and hasn’t bought a Hallmark card in … ever. As for Annabelle and my dad, I’m sure that every time we have all gotten together since she first met him, my dad is thinking “What the hell happened to that gal who came over to my house and dazzled me with her impeccable material and timing?” With expectations that elevated, there was no place for Annabelle to go but down.
As for me, all in all, I consider myself pretty damn lucky that Shirley and Harry hold me in such unearned high esteem. And knowing Annabelle as I do after thirteen years of marriage, those first eighteen years of her childhood could not have been a picnic for her parents. So that makes me feel for them as well.
She Says
I hate to burst Jeff’s bubble, but he needn’t have worried. As a son-in-law, he had my parents at “Hello.”
With those thousands of miles between us, my parents met very few of the men I dated, although I did bring home one boyfriend from my freshman year in college. Jacob was the son of a famous French socialist philosopher, but all my parents knew was that he had a shaved head, owned only one set of clothing, and his bathing habits were decidedly European. He wore a black leather motorcycle jacket with skin-tight jeans tucked into knee-high, shit-kicker, steel-toed lace-up work boots; his one T-shirt had an engorged penis hand-painted on it. He wore that to the beach. He spoke no English. We also spent most of our time in Miami doing coke. That went over so well, they didn’t meet another person I dated for ten years.* My folks never met my first husband until after we’d eloped, so by the time I got engaged to Jeff, the fact that I had chosen to marry someone with whom they had even a slight chance of having something in common was so astonishing that I might as well have informed them that I had grown a second head. Really, all Jeff had to do was conjugate a few verbs correctly, dress seasonally, and he was in.
You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up Page 17