Peggy's Musings

Love Will Keep us Together

The news that Al and Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage has led to reactions ranging from shock to sadness. They have always seemed to be a very loving couple who were totally committed to each other, and it’s disturbing when we see such a marriage end. However, it's an illustration of the false assurance promised by the title of a song, “Love will keep us together.”

I identify with their background in that I also married my high school sweetheart – 55 years ago. And while I recognize that early marriage can be a drawback, it can also potentially create a closer bond than when you meet as full-fledged adults. However, life has many twists and turns for all of us (regardless of how or when we start out), and theirs has certainly had its share.

For instance, friends have pointed out that their union reflected the old saying that “opposites attract” - and that they have led very different lives for many years, contributing to a certain “growing apart.” So while it may seem sad to see it reach this point, we need to recognize that they seem to have made a very considered, practical decision that they believe to be best for this time of their lives.

While I favor trying to work toward strengthening a marriage rather than abandoning it, I sense that the Gores have done this kind of work. Since I respect each couple's right to make this decision for themselves, it leaves the rest of us to accept their decision (whatever it is) - whether or not we understand or agree.

With the announcement of their separation, many people jumped to the conclusion that there must be a “smoking gun” – some incident that precipitated it. We may never know whether or not that was the case, but if we take them at their word that it was NOT something like this, then we also need to accept that sometimes marriages end not with a bang but with a whimper.

It’s easy to believe that their caring for each other and their family will continue. And this new situation may feel more authentic than whatever years may have led up to it where they were holding on to the past connection without moving forward together into the future.

One of the many possible factors in the demise of their marriage may by the changing attitudes of men and women as they get older. Although Tipper is 15 years younger than me, I relate to what happened with many women of our generation. We have tended to subvert our own interests and desires to that of our husband and family. When I married at the age of 19, it was an earlier time when traditional ideas about marriage were far more restrictive. So I abandoned almost all my personal pursuits and interests and threw myself completely into the “role” of wife, then mother.

In fact, many of us continue to identify strongly with our “roles” as wife, mother, daughter, worker, etc., but can’t clearly state who we are as a “person.” For many years, I’ve tried to remind myself not to get lost in my roles by looking at a saying I’ve posted near my desk saying: “A role is only a task; we’ve been using it as an identity.”

So while I can’t possibly know what might have been the motivation for the Gore’s separation, I can imagine a possible factor being Tipper’s desire to pursue a path beyond fulfilling her “roles” in life. And knowing how my husband has respected and supported my efforts to pursue other aspects of life beyond the roles I play… I can imagine that Al might well be supportive of any desire on Tipper’s part to more completely determine the course of her own life in the future – while maintaining a strong connection to him and to her family.

We would all do well to remind ourselves that there are many ways to live and that each of us struggles to find what’s best at different stages of our lives. So regardless of the reasons for the Gore’s separation, ultimately it’s none of our business – and we can only wish them well.

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NOTE: If you enjoy these blog posts, please check out the list of 107 similar 'musings' (and read 8 of them) included in my book Musings on Life.

Trust can be Romantic

Last week I posted “Some General Principles to Live By” that my husband wrote for our kids many years ago when they were teenagers. Now as Valentine’s Day approaches, I want to again share some of his writing – this time a poem on ‘Trust’ that he wrote for me a long time ago.

While we usually think of Valentine’s as a time for candy and flowers and cards with romantic thoughts, trust can also be romantic – as well as far more lasting than the gifts we normally share at this time.

"Please Trust Me"
By James Vaughan

Please trust me, so that I can love you freely.
I need your trust to grow; without it I cannot be myself.
Your trust sets me free...gives me strength...helps me open myself to you...
makes me rich...makes me feel ten feet tall...helps me accept myself...feels good.

I want to trust you. I will trust you if you care.
I need clear expressions of your caring for me.
I will trust you if you share...
I want to know who you are, what you feel, what you want,
what you think...about life, about love, about me.

I will trust you if you dare...
We will change and grow together if we are not afraid.
I want you to be part of my becoming.
I want you to take the risk of hurting me in order to help me grow.
I want to be part of your becoming.

I will try to accept you as you are and help you become who you want to be.
Please let me.
I will never hurt you on purpose, but I will run that risk in trying to help you grow.
I will make my trust known to you...
with my eyes...with my touch...with my presence...with my words.

My trust for you will endure over time and become stronger each time we renew it.
It needs to be renewed so that it will reflect the changes in each of us.
If I should lose your trust, the weight of the loss would lie heavy on my shoulders.
Yet I would still be richer for having had it.
I will not do anything knowingly that would cause you to lose trust in me.

If I trust you deeply, I will also love you deeply.
Trust is a delicate thing.
I may say or do something sometimes that causes you to doubt my trust.
Please share that doubt with me and check out my intentions.
I don't want to lose your trust.

There is no end to the depth of trust we can build.
Each time you show your trust in me,
my love for you grows deeper and I grow stronger.
Trusting you makes it possible for me to trust myself and others more.
When I trust my feelings and natural impulses and act on them,
things usually turn out better.
That's hard to do sometimes. Your trust helps me do it more often.

I need your trust now.
Time will never permit us to know each other completely.
But time need not stand in our way.
I have trusted deeply after four hours of sharing.
I have also found trust lacking after four years of working together.

I don't need to know everything you have been or everything you might become.
Let me know you now, and I will trust you now.
I know we need some time together, and yet our ability to trust
seems almost independent of time.

Trusting feels good...not trusting feels awful.
Experiencing deep trust with you makes me feel like...time is standing still...
we are touching something precious...
we are reaching out for the highest part of being human...
we are one with the universe.

I can feel your trust when you're not around...it feels like warm sunshine.
When you touch me gently you affirm your trust in me.
I need your touch. I want it. It feels good.

There is power in trust--awesome power.
I can do much, much more when I know you trust me.
I will stretch myself to keep your trust.

I want to be all the things that I can.
You can help me if you trust me. I hope you will.
As I learn more about myself, I will be able to trust you more.
Please help me learn.

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NOTE: If you enjoy these blog posts, please check out the list of 107 similar 'musings' (and read 8 of them) included in my book Musings on Life.

On Being Loved

Everyone wants/needs to be loved. Children want to be loved by their parents; single adults want it from their ‘significant other,’ and married people want it from their spouses.

I don’t think you can be the recipient of too much love as a child. Granted, if the love is of a smothering nature, it can be questionable. But one of our favorite family practices, passed down from generation to generation, is for the parent to say to the child, “I love you up to the sky, across the sky, and on the other side of the sky.” Invariably this simple phrase delights children and makes them feel extremely loved.

But is there such a thing as being loved too much? I wouldn’t have thought there was much chance of that until something happened the other day that triggered my feeling that way. My very loving husband said, “I know you know I love you, but do you know how MUCH I love you?” He has said similar things in the past, but this time my first thought was “I don’t deserve to be loved that much.”

Frankly, I don’t see myself as that ‘lovable;’ I’m often too opinionated, too controlling, too critical, too impatient, and especially too intense. (OK, I’m not THAT bad, but you get the idea; I do not feel like a warm-and-fuzzy lovable type.) Anyway, somehow being the recipient of so much love led me to consider my obvious weaknesses and to feel unworthy of his patience with a person who is not that easy to live with.

He says I’m far too hard on myself, and repeatedly says: “You’re doing fine, Peggy” - even though I know I’m not doing anywhere near as ‘fine’ as he gives me credit for.

Anyway, I decided to ask him specifically WHY he loves me so much. Of course, that’s not a simple question and has no clear answer. But he often says he’s ‘impressed’ by me. I can only assume that he is focusing only on my good qualities (and my good heart, which he knows intimately) and somehow manages to overlook the day-to-day nitty-gritty drama I can generate so unnecessarily.

The bottom line is that his love motivates me in a positive way. I feel much like the character played by Jack Nicholson in the movie ‘As Good as it Gets’ when he says: “You make me want to be a better [person].”

So I hope my sharing will motivate you to consider whether you are the kind of person you want to be – both for yourself and for those who may love you.

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NOTE: If you enjoy these blog posts, please check out the list of 107 similar 'musings' (and read 8 of them) included in my book Musings on Life.

Lasting Love

Today is our 54th wedding anniversary, so I’ve been thinking about how long our love has lasted – through good times and bad. Of course, like most loves, ours began long before the wedding. In fact, it began as ‘puppy love’ when we were about 6 years old. Then when we were about 16, our ‘romantic love’ period began. While that kind of love never completely disappears, through the years it becomes transformed into a deeper form of what I call ‘lasting love.’

I do want to quickly acknowledge that having a marriage that has lasted a long time doesn’t guarantee that the love has lasted as well. Some couples move away from this kind of loving bond, but do not literally move away from each other. This is often a practical decision that may serve their need for companionship, financial support, or just plain old habit. It’s not to be disparaged – because everyone has the right to determine their own course through life, especially when they reach their later years.

But in the U.S. and many other countries, LOVE is both more and less important than we recognize. For instance, we overemphasize the importance of ‘romantic love’ – as if it were the be-all and end-all of love. This is a fairly superficial view of love, one that is used to promote all kinds of goods and services in the advertising and marketing world. The most damaging feature of this belief in romantic love as ‘real love’ is that it presents this initial stage of love as the key to ‘living happily ever after.’

Unfortunately, this leads most couples to have an unrealistic view of what love is and what it can be throughout a lifetime together. When the romantic love stage wanes (as it inevitably does), too many couples think this signals the end of their love for each other. They fail to recognize the far more important kind of love that is waiting to emerge if we value and support the shift to a deeper, more bonded, more connected level.

Those who appreciate this transition and don’t try to hold onto the earlier ‘romantic’ love are far more likely to actually achieve the ‘happily ever after’ relationship. As with many things in life, holding on to a fantasy can prevent you from experiencing the real thing – and the rewards that come with it.

I know that when we’re young, it’s hard to imagine being older and finding joy and comfort in having a partner to hold dear to your heart. We tend to think short-term and fail to appreciate that the decisions we make today eventually lead us either toward or away from the long-term goals we might want for our lives.

But if ‘lasting love’ is your ultimate goal, it’s important not to cling to the first stage of love (the romantic love that doesn’t last). Otherwise, you miss out on having BOTH - the romantic love in the beginning and the lasting love for the long haul. Each one has its place in your life, and the sooner you understand this, the more likely you are to have a life filled with love.

For more about the changing nature of love, see our book, Making Love Stay.

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NOTE: If you enjoy these blog posts, please check out the list of 107 similar 'musings' (and read 8 of them) included in my book Musings on Life.