Radio Show – A Jew In Church
First air date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Featured guests:
Wayne Levine (BetterMen.Org) for “The Men’s Room”
Pastor Drew Sams (Calvary Church, Westlake Village, CA) for “Teen Rap”
Julie Spira (CyberDatingExpert) for “Single Parent Dating”
The column referenced is, “A Jew In Church”
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Jim Scheinberg (North Pier Fiduciary Management) for “Family Financial Matters”
Wayne Levine (BetterMen.Org) for “The Men’s Room”
Pastor Drew Sams (Calvary Church, Westlake Village, CA) for “Teen Rap”
Julie Spira (The Cyber Dating Expert) for “Single Parenting Dating”
The column referenced is, “Are Second Marriages Harder?.”
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My wife took me to see Nancy Meyer’s new movie, It’s Complicated, which stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin. She had seen it a day or two before and wanted to see it with me saying, “It would be good for us.” Honestly, I do tend to like what is typically labeled “chick flicks” but don’t like director Nancy Meyer’s perfect world, perfect rich characters, perfect looking people, dressed and coifed just perfectly. But, for the sake of marital harmony, I agreed.
I didn’t expect what followed. Throughout the It’s Complicated, my wife was jabbing me in the ribs whenever she wanted me to notice a point being made that she felt related to me or us. So, I left with bruised ribs, which ached even more towards the end of the movie during the one, truly hilarious scene. I really enjoyed laughing that hard, in spite of the pained ribs, which I’ve totally exaggerated for sympathy anyway.
Dennis Prager, one of the most influential men in my life, spoke on his talk show recently about the impact of a first year of marriage. He asked if an easy, successful first year or a difficult, hard first year were indicative of the long-term success of the marriage? He didn’t take a position either way, allowing callers to offer their stories, which were both positive and negative about the impact of their first years on their marriages.
As I’m about to survive, I mean celebrate, my first year of my second marriage, it raised some questions for me, worthy of thought. Our first year has been both wonderful and rough, in many unforeseen ways, and I’ve wondered what it means for our future.
Clichés are clichés because they’re usually true. They say the biggest arguments couples have are over sex, the kids, and money. True? You bet. At least in my house it’s restricted to just one of those – $money$. Maybe I’ll just do future blogs about the other two subjects ‘cause you know I’m lying about money being the only issue we ever have.
But, this time, we did get in a heated argument over $money$. I think that second marriages are more complicated on most levels as each partner does bring more history, more literal baggage, and potentially kids, to the marriage. I brought the baggage of an ugly, angry, costly divorce in which my ex also abandoned my boys. My present wife has often stated that she feels she’s paying for the sins of my ex. And, to some degree, she is right.
In every marriage, spouses face an inevitable choice between their children and their spouse. It is a classic dilemma that confronts every couple and one that is inescapable and difficult. It is especially true in second marriages, like mine. I have to admit, it is an ongoing issue in our home and one I’m trying to figure out with the right amount of love and respect shown towards everyone.
Some therapists advise that the husband/wife should always come first. Others, like Dr. Laura, advise to always put the kids first. As with much of her advice, I think it’s too cut-and-dried and doesn’t take into consideration the grays of life. In my case, I was raising my boys alone for several years and the bond we had was deep, plus the hurt from their mom abandoning them was deep and different for each of them.
I recently learned some statistics that surprised me, but upon reflection they really made sense. What do you think the rate of divorce is between first, second, and third marriages? Think about it. I didn’t and came to the wrong conclusion.
It’s pretty much agreed by most experts that first marriages end in divorce about 40-50% of the time. What surprised me is that the divorce rate increases with second marriages to something like 60% and more, while third marriages end in divorce at least 70% of the time.
My first gut reaction was that we would have learned from prior mistakes, we’d be wiser with the experience of living through a marriage and divorce, and maybe, just maybe, we may have learned something about our contributions to the break-up. And, therefore, we’d not repeat destructive behaviors.
I believe all clichés are generally true. How else could something become a cliché in the first place? Not surprisingly, then, all the clichés about second marriages are true. Indeed, comedy careers have been built around jokes about a second set of in-laws, second husbands or wives, and blended families. For good reason: in-law jokes, and family relationship humor can be hysterical–sometimes.
In a second marriage, couples want to believe that they’ve learned something from the first one and they’re going to take all that hard-earned experience and apply it, making the second marriage work beautifully. Hmmm, is that why there’s a higher incidence of divorce in second marriages and an even higher divorce rate in third and fourth marriages? It is sad, but true.
