A Dad’s Point-of-View

By Bruce Sallan

Dennis Prager, one of the most influential men in my life, spoke on his talk show recently about the impact of a first year on 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.

Second marriages naturally have their own challenges, as we tend to be older and bring more history (aka “baggage”) to the union. Ours was no exception, as we came with a trove of differences as well as some important commonalities. On our honeymoon, we met another couple that also had some pretty inherent disparities and we enjoyed a friendly debate about which of us was the most dissimilar couple.

I met my wife online and the first sentence of her profile asked, “Do you ski?” That I do, and it became the basis for our introduction. In fact, we were pretty matched as skiers, since Loren had grown up in Vancouver and had skied her whole life. I may be a bit more aggressive, a bit more “go for it” in my approach, but there’s no doubt that she’s a more graceful and elegant skier. However, beyond skiing, we discovered many other shared interests and values along with some substantial differences.

Though our religions were different, the common values we shared from our respective religions were actually more compatible than had our political views been different. I learned that irony in my former showbiz days when I became good friends with a Christian writer I was working with and we discovered we really shared the very same values and, as it turned out, political views. Our only difference, really, was in the role of Jesus in the world. I’ll save that discussion for another time, if at all, as I’m no religious expert.

So, my wife and I had skiing and basic values (e.g. The Ten Commandments) in common. Those basic values included our political orientation. Our differences were racial and religious, as I’m a Jewish white guy and she’s Christian Chinese. On the surface we were from different religions and different cultures. However, two similarities that our cultures and religions share are love of food and education. Different foods, but love of eating, cooking, and sharing a meal couldn’t be more identical. The same can be said of our belief in the value of education, though I’ve actually become more relaxed about the value of a college education than I used to be.

As to our differences, let’s say like real estate where the mantra is “Location, location, location” our main difference is “clean, clean, clean.” Loren is quite organized, neat, and dare I say obsessed with cleanliness, while I maintain a decidedly relaxed attitude towards it. Since I was a single dad, with two boys and two dogs, that relaxed attitude became more ingrained as keeping clean became less a priority than our emotional survival during the initial period of we three boys living together, without a female in our midst.

Our first year of marriage was complicated by the stresses of several outside events, beginning with the death of my mother, shortly before we married, and including the emergence of my older son into full teen-dom. For Loren, there were several health problems, including several minor surgeries literally all in the first year of our marriage, plus two more severe scares relating to the health of her parents (both of which have been resolved well). And, Loren has had to deal with her profession being at the center of the storm of recession, as she’s a real estate agent.

Love may conquer all, but there are still large hurdles that we’ve both faced in this freshman term of our marriage. This is especially true for her, as the sole female entering our male world. There were some tight bonds formed during the years we were just “we guys.” And, to top it off, Loren had to adjust to moving from the center of the city to the outskirts of suburbia, where we lived. Since her future stepsons were entrenched in their schools and social lives, she understood and graciously made that change as well.

All these factors made for an interesting and challenging first year. Our saving grace was the willingness to acknowledge that we occasionally needed help. We’ve gone to a wonderful therapist who has both sternly counseled us on our respective childish behaviors and given us feedback and useful tools, which we’ve tried to implement. I emphasize, “tried,” as teaching old dogs new tricks is a challenge.

While I’m writing this from my point-of-view, I know that Loren will agree that we’re equally stubborn and set in our ways. However, we’re both equally willing to work on these issues with our therapist and recognize that this second marriage is no picnic. But, it is completely and absolutely worth the effort and compromises, and the resulting joys that we share. Don’t tell her, but I lucked out!

Please visit www.brucesallan.com to contact Bruce and to enjoy the various features his new Web site offers, including contact info for advice and coaching, an archive of his columns, general contact info, links to his published work, photo galleries, and reader comments, plus much more. Bruce Sallan was an award-winning television executive and producer for 25 years. Google him if you really want to know more (e.g. his credits). When his boys were quite young, Bruce left show biz to become a full-time Dad. Shortly thereafter his marriage ended and his wife abandoned their children, leaving the State. Bruce found himself a full-time single Dad, in his late forties, as well as a returning single man to the changed world of cyber-dating. It became a classic “sandwich” situation when he also began to care for his ailing parents. He began writing various blogs on the dating sites he used as well as articles for local publications. The goal of his column, A Dad’s Point-of-View, is to primarily focus on parenting and occasionally other issues from the male perspective. Presently, his column is available in over 75 newspapers and Web sites in the U.S. and internationally. Bruce lives in Agoura, California with his second (and last) wife and two boys, who are 16 and 13. Find Bruce on Facebook and add him as your friend and join his “A Dad’s Point-of-View” fan page. Just be sure to tell him you saw him here.

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1. Who Said Marriage Should Be Work?
2. Marriage – It’s Complicated
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A Dad’s Point-of-View

by Bruce Sallan

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.

When I reflected on the challenges in my own house and applied some common sense, those statistics became more logical. The reality is that the older we get, the more we’ve experienced, the more we’re likely to be set in our ways, and the more stress that is likely to come our direction. By this I mean that with age often comes increased problems.

In my new, second marriage my wife and I have already dealt with the death of a parent, a significant loss of savings via the recession, a severe downturn in one of our professions (real estate), blending our families with my kids, a parent’s serious surgery, two surgeries of our own, moving, one of our dogs sent to doggie prison for attacking another dog, and a teenager.

I believe everyone in life has problems and, as I stated to my wife just yesterday, I wouldn’t switch mine with anyone I know and I’m especially grateful for our family’s present good health. Health is indeed the greatest wealth, without a doubt. I’m also extremely grateful for the growth of my new career as a columnist, so I have little to complain about.

But, second marriages are a challenge and ours is no exception. Thankfully, we’re both able and willing to work on it. For us, it has meant occasional sessions with a therapist. For others, it may be clergy that can offer an objective view and unemotional help.

We’ve also both been willing to read some of the better self-help books. One we especially found illuminating was “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, which taught us, to our surprise, that we’re different from one another in how we express love and want love expressed in return. The lessons learned and the realization of what each of our “love languages” is has been helpful, though as with so many things we know, applying them to our actions is harder than reading or hearing about them.

Some people say that marriage is “work.” While I agree with that to some degree, it’s the amount of “work” that is worth discussion. If your relationship is constantly fraught with fights and disagreements, non-stop sessions with therapists, and regular on-going tension in the house, then that is just too much “work.”

On the other hand, if you expect to just slide by without making adjustments in your own behavior and aren’t willing to explore the bigger issues via therapy, clergy, and/or discussion, then you’re not putting in enough “work.” Like everything in life, there’s a balance and the extremes tend to not work, to beat that word to death.

As passionate as I may be about a particular issue, there’s no question of my culpability in any stressful and meaningful argument or disagreement we have. And, to my wife’s credit, she says the same thing. Granted, she’s more emotional than I, but I’m more stubborn. I believe this is a normal gender balance. And, let’s face it; making up can be a lot of fun.

I’m going to offer a few suggestions that will help any relationship. These are ideas I learned, back in my showbiz career, when I attended a weekend seminar put on by the Catholic Church as a prerequisite for getting married in the church. I was developing a murder mystery, a TV movie; set against the background of such a couple’s retreat and I went undercover with the writer, as an engaged couple.

Not knowing each other well, we crafted new identities for each other, how we met, when we were getting married, likes and dislikes, etc. It was actually quite fun and extremely eye opening for us. Here are some of their valuable suggestions, which apply to first or fifth marriages:

1. Don’t go to bed angry.
2. Don’t call each other names.
3. Let go of old business, old issues. Debate them, argue them, and let them go.
4. Hold each other’s hand during an argument to remind each other of your connection and love (not easy).
5. When you agree to something, whether reluctantly or not, you cannot later say you didn’t agree to it. In other words, if you give in, you’ve let go of your right to complain later.

I maintain that this short list will enhance any relationship. Thankfully, I have a loving, willing partner with my wife and I know we’ll work through our issues and have a long, loving, fulfilling marriage.

Please visit www.brucesallan.com to contact Bruce and to enjoy the various features his new Web site offers, including contact info for advice and coaching, an archive of his columns, general contact info, links to his published work, photo galleries, and reader comments, plus much more. Bruce Sallan was an award-winning television executive and producer for 25 years. Google him if you really want to know more (e.g. his credits). When his boys were quite young, Bruce left show biz to become a full-time Dad. Shortly thereafter his marriage ended and his wife abandoned their children, leaving the State. Bruce found himself a full-time single Dad, in his late forties, as well as a returning single man to the changed world of cyber-dating. It became a classic “sandwich” situation when he also began to care for his ailing parents. He began writing various blogs on the dating sites he used as well as articles for local publications. The goal of his column, A Dad’s Point-of-View, is to primarily focus on parenting and occasionally other issues from the male perspective. Presently, his column is available in over 75 newspapers and Web sites in the U.S. and internationally. Bruce lives in Agoura, California with his second (and last) wife and two boys, who are 15 and 12. Find Bruce on Facebook and add him as your friend. Just be sure to tell him you saw him here.

Related posts:

1. What Does the First Year of Marriage Portend?
2. Marriage – It’s Complicated
3. 5 Key Reasons For Conflict In A Marriage