Category: love

Remember that old Frank Sinatra song, LOVE IS LOVELIER THE SECOND TIME AROUND? 

But is it? For anyone contemplating a second marriage, the statistics aren’t very encouraging:  First marriage divorce rate 50%; second marriage, 67%; third marriage; 74%.  Makes you wonder why anyone would bother getting married at all, especially now that living together is not frowned upon as it used to be. 

And yet, young people continue to go to the altar, especially twenty somethings.  Unfortunately, most of them have no  idea what they’re getting into.  Living in someone’s apartment for a few years may convince you that you do, but that carefree life all changes when reality sets in.  Married people are expected to have good jobs, and keep them.  They’re supposed to buy a home and raise a family.  In other words, marriage  suddenly thrusts  more responsibility on a formerly carefree couple,  and not everyone is mentally or emotionally equipped to handle that.  Tempers flare more frequently now.  Coping with a sick child, unemployment,  health problems,  and all the worries of adulthood may lead to disillusionment, arguments, and sometimes depression.  Many women marry for status and security only to find they don’t like the sex part of marriage.  Younger married couples often have no shared interests except children.  One may be an avid sports fan, while the other prefers the arts.   Most unhappy married couples stay together for the sake of the children, which is probably why they last longer than subsequent marriages.

But here’s what’s good about second marriages. You know what you really want in a spouse–often someone quite different than your first one. And since you’re more likely to be marrying for love and companionship, rather than establishing a home and raising a family, you’re more apt to be sexually compatible. 

You also have learned to be more tolerant of each other’s shortcomings, and you pick your battles.  A dented fender on a new car may cause a major conflict in a first marriage, but by the time you’ve remarried, you’re not in the mood to get worked up about things that don’t really matter. You’ve learned  how to bite your tongue instead of lashing out when you have disagreements, and settle things in a more mature way. 

Marriage will always be a gamble, but if you can manage to do a better job of choosing a spouse the second time around, you’re likely to be much happier than you’ve ever been in your life.

This post will not be a tribute to my own loving grandparents, because I didn’t have any.  My maternal grandmother died  in rural Indiana when my  mother was thirteen.   Mother went away to school, and at age 21,  married my father in Chicago while she was attending musical college–much to the chagrin of my paternal grandparents.  They didn’t like her,  and so naturally, she didn’t like them. As a result, we seldom saw my father’s parents except for brief visits every few years.  My father’s brother lived across the street from them, and his children were the ones they cared about.  My widowed, paternal  grandfather lived on a farm with my uncle’s family of four children, so those were his “real” grandchildren.  I don’t remember any of my grandparents sitting down and talking to me or showing the slightest interest in me or my life.

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So, I do have grandparent envy when my husband talks about the wonderful relationship he had with his grandparents in Nebraska.  If you read his book, A Preacher Called Sinn, you will understand what a profound effect their love had on his childhood.  During the depression, his parents were under stress, afraid of losing their farm, and consequently home life was fraught with tension. But my husband had a safety net—he could go across the road and enjoy the unconditional love of “Grandma Alice and Grandpa Will.”

Grandparents living nearby can serve as back up parents, compensating for the occasional lapse in parenting skills  on the part of their own children.   And even if they don’t live nearby, faraway grandparents can still offer loving support in the way of phone calls, special family trips together, visits, birthday and Christmas cards, and even social media.

In Hillbilly Elegy, the author J. D. Vance writes of a tumultuous childhood with a drug addicted mother, and divorced parents.  The only thing that saved him was the knowledge that his grandparents would always be there for him.   Who knows what your grandchildren will accomplish in life because of the love you’ve given them.

Misogyny takes many forms.   Common wisdom says that everyone loves a pretty girl.  But, in fact, males who feel intense frustration that a lovely girl doesn’t return his feelings of affection may take a gun to school and shoot her.  The tragic events at high schools in Indiana and Texas prove this point.

Beautiful women have always sensed that their appearance may  arouse intense feelings of envy and jealousy. A pretty girl may be the kindest, most gentle soul imaginable, but her looks may evoke hostility  from other girls, who will label her shallow, vain, and any other adjectives they can summon up to diminish the fact that she’s just way too good looking.   Although not every man will decide to shoot her, some  men will hate her because they realize they don’t stand a chance to win her affections. They will probably call her dumb, crazy, bitchy,  or whatever hateful term comes to mind.  Very young women often don’t realize this.  Perhaps that’s why Muslims think it best if women cover their hair and faces.  At least they won’t get shot by some  jealous maniac.

I know of a wealthy mother who was so determined to have a beautiful daughter that she submitted her to a nose job,  chin lift,  and other surgeries.  Her hair is done in an expensive salon, far out of reach for average teenagers, and her make up is a Sephora triumph.  Designer clothes on a perfect figure complete the picture. Why then, does this girl look so sullen and miserable when you see her in public with her parents?   Pulchritude is a gift, but it can also be a curse.

Do you remember the last time you received a handwritten letter?  If you’re under fifty, you may have never received one at all, except for some hastily written sentences scrawled at the bottom of a greeting card.

Before e mail and smart phones and texting, it was costly to make long distance phone calls, and people actually sat down and wrote letters.  Especially if you were in the dating mode.  I had boyfriends in the service , boyfriends who went to colleges a long way from home and boyfriends who’d moved away , and it was exciting to wait for the mailman and see your name scrawled across an envelope with their return address.  Heart pounding, you would tear open the envelope and pore over  every single word.  If it was a love letter, you would hide it in a drawer so your mother wouldn’t see it, and read it over and over again until you got another one.

My college girlfriends also wrote letters in the summer, full of news about vacations, who they were dating, and all those gossipy things young women talk about.  Their handwriting and enclosed snapshots were unique and personal,  almost as if they were right there in the room.

After I was married and lived far from home, my mother and I exchanged letters every week, pounded out on an old typewriter.  We never bothered with spelling and punctuation  corrections (too much trouble to stop and erase), but we both looked forward to hearing about what was going on in each other’s lives.  I  could go back to the letter all week, anytime I was  feeling lonely and missed  my family. A personal letter was a comfort and also a great compliment .  It meant someone cared enough about you to sit down for maybe an hour, address an envelope, buy a stamp, and take it to the post office.  

You know what I’ve going to do today?  I’m going to sit right down and write someone a letter.