Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study, by George Vaillant
Happiness is only the cart; love is the horse... the most important influence by far on a flourishing life is love... seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points, at least to me, to a straightforward five word conclusion: “Happiness is love. Full stop."
What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
In this popular essay from June 2006 — one of the most emailed New York Times articles ever — a wife tries to improve her husband by using exotic-animal training techniques.
As I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. “Have you seen my keys?” he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human’s upset.
In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, “Don’t worry, they’ll turn up.” But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.
Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don’t turn around. I don’t say a word. I’m using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.
I love my husband. He’s well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.
But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I’m trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. “What did you say?” he’ll shout.
These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn’t keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.
So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he’d drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever... (continues)
I have read about this Harvard Study before, and I would agree with your assessment. It was amazing to me that loneliness was a better predictor of failing health and death than many diseases. Love and companionship are very important indeed.
ReplyDeleteAnd, about the New York Times article, I found this very interesting. I have to admit I was taken back by the idea of 'training' another adult; but, as I continued to read, I realized that this 'training' was actually unlike what most think of when they hear that word, including myself. I think that this 'training' is actually the art of acceptance of the other person. If you examine it closely, you will see that it focuses not on changing the other's behavior so much as on learning and accepting it; and, then changing your own behaviors and actions in accordance with the other's. Because of this, I actually think that this could be beneficial to anyone in a relationship. It is actually quite healthy to examine and get to know the other, to acknowledge and reward the other's efforts, and learn to be less reactionary one's self to the other's various moods. I loved this article! It turned a toxic idea of 'training your man' into 'how to have a healthy relationship.' Very smart.
Agreed: acceptance works a lot better than attempted reform, in long-term relationships. Once again, happiness seems to require a stoic approach. (Seems like Spinoza would have had better luck in romance, doesn't it?)
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