taken from the Preface

My mother waged a tremendous war against cancer at two different times in her life before her body finally gave up. She was almost eighty one. Throughout the long years of struggle she had a small, circular sign attached to her refrigerator door that read – “Old Age Is Not for Sissies.” With each visit, I would find myself increasingly drawn to that little sign. The truth of its message became more and more real as her ordeal stretched out over time. After she died I brought it home and put it up on my refrigerator. Now it lives there along with a postscript I added which reads, “And Neither Is Marriage.”

Old age challenges our courage and character. It puts our “heart” to the test in so many ways. But so does marriage. Now, ten years into my third marriage, I know the truth of this all too well. The difference is that we expect this of old age and are increasingly learning to take measures to deal with its challenges effectively. But when it comes to marriage and long-term relationships, we are typically uneducated and unprepared for the challenges of the heart that inevitably come with intimacy. For millions in our society, the price that is often paid for stepping into marriage so profoundly unprepared is divorce. It typically takes a major toll on all those involved, but especially on the children. For at least thirty years I have been listening to a mixed chorus of confusion, deep hurt, anger, and sadness coming from students whose lives were turned upside down once their families came apart at the seams. But many who study family matters would have us understand that much of this kind of suffering is “illegitimate” or “unnecessary.” Of course by this they don’t mean that therefore it isn’t real. What they want us to see is that because it is largely self-inflicted, the intensity of this pain and its consequences could at least be lessened, or perhaps avoided altogether. My life, both personally and professionally, has taught me that this is irrefutably true – which is why I write.

For any number of reasons some people make significant mistakes in the partners they choose and soon enough discover that they are irreconcilably mismatched. They seem destined for divorce. But many more drift away from one another on a stream of caustic confrontations. The unresolved hurts and deeper wounds to the soul that result from everyday bickering and sniping, not to mention long drawn-out battles, gradually drain the life from a relationship. Rather than taking care to nurture their partnership they have instead been careless with it. In time it begins to wither and then eventually it dies and dissolves. These relationships expire prematurely and needlessly because they die from neglect. They die simply because people have not yet come to fully realize what is implied when we acknowledge that a relationship is a living thing.

Because it is alive it takes time and requires care and attention if it is to grow and prosper. And, as it is with so many things we are asked to learn in life, it also takes some know-how. We are not born knowing how to listen effectively, how to be patient and understanding, or how to check our tendency to judge and extend compassion or forgiveness instead. So we have to learn these things. We have to learn how to take the edge off our temper, how to open our mind and heart, and how to otherwise extend our self when some part of us would rather take our frustrations out on our partner. Not only do most of us have a lot to learn, then, but we also have a lot to practice.

Practice is involved in most learning but it is essential to the kind we are talking about here. You learn to be patient only by practicing patience in one situation after another. You learn to open your heart only by working to re-open it once it has closed. Recently, a student who really got this point about the importance of practice said, “That’s right, I won’t lose weight just by reading a book about dieting!” And so it is with loving relationships and deep partnering. You can’t have them just by reading this or any other book. They must be “home-grown” in the soil of the hard stuff that comes with being intimate, and forged from the challenges and heat that inevitably arise whenever we try to live with another person.

But educating ourselves and learning, through books or any other means, is the first significant step on this path to deeper partnership; the way opening and studying a cookbook is the first step in preparing a particular meal. Applying what you learn is the second step; practice is truly essential to change and growth. This is the step that keeps you grounded by showing you where you actually are, as opposed to where (and who) you think you are. This is the giant step involved in “walking your talk” and “realizing your potential.” Reading what the Dalai Lama has to say about compassion will not, by itself, make you more compassionate. But working to suspend your preconceptions and judgments so that you can then feel into what someone else is experiencing – this will.