Part 2
In Part 1 of this series I introduced you to the work of Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schultz, PhD who co-directed the iconic, 86-year-old Harvard Study of Adult Development. In their book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Largest Scientific Study of Happiness, offer expert guidance on how to live a fully healthy life, love deeply, and find your passion and purpose in the middle and beyond. I also shared the work of Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy, and what we can learn from his new book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age
In Part 2, I want to introduce you to the three areas where it is most important to apply this wisdom—In our love life, in our work life, and in our inner life. In his book, The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship, David Whyte says,
“Humans are creatures that belong, though they may come to this sense of belonging only through long periods of exile and solitude.’
Most of us have experienced the feelings of exile and loneliness that Whyte describes. I found Whyte’s description of the three marriages very helpful.
“This sense of belonging or not belonging,” says Whyte, “is experienced by most people through three basic dynamics:
- “First, through relationship with other people and other living things (especially and very personally, with another living breathing person in a relationship or marriage).”
- “Second, through work. Work is not only a necessity. Good work like a good marriage needs commitment to something bigger than our own detailed, day-to-day needs.
- “Third, perhaps the most difficult marriage of all beneath the two visible, very public marriages of work and relationship—is the inner and often secret marriage to that difficult mobile boundary of ourselves.
“These are the three marriages of Work, Self and Others.”
Like many men, I have struggled to find success balancing all three “marriages.” I was more successful in my professional life, in part by writing books about what I learned through my failures in my love life and the search for my lost self. My first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man detailing my struggles to understand who I am. The second, book, Looking for love in all the wrong places detailing the confusion I had between “real lasting love” and “sex and romance addiction.” The other fifteen books and twelve hundred articles are my ongoing journey to learn and share what I have learned about integrating all three. Clearly, this is a trip of a lifetime.
One of the main lessons is that success in one marriage cannot be automatically transferred to others. For a long time, I believed that if I could become a successful psychotherapist and make a lot of money, I could attract the woman of my dreams and live happily ever after. It didn’t work as you will find out if you visit my website and watch my introductory video Confessions of a Twice Divorced Marriage Counselor.
Whyte shares a powerful truth in his book.
“Each of these marriages is, at its heart, non-negotiable; that we must give up trying to balance one marriage against another, for example taking time away from work to give more time to a partner, or vice versa, and starting to think about each marriage conversing with, challenging or encouraging the other two’.
I learned an important lesson about how these three marriages can grow integrated from a Native American basket maker. He described our life as a basket woven from many different threads, each necessary for a strong container. Every part of our lives is a leg in this basket. In this case, think of each of the three marriages as a strand, each equally important in building a beautiful basket of life.
He explained to me that it is impossible to weave several strands at once. We must attend to the strand that requires our attention without losing awareness of others. Each strand will get our attention — not all at once.
Instead of feeling like we’re juggling multiple balls of marital responsibilities and work duties while trying to take care of our own needs and ultimately failing, we can give 100% of our attention to our work when we’re working. When it comes time for the marriage leg, we give our full attention to that leg, and later to the self leg. This simple image helped me relax and enter the dance of life.
Another thing I learned from Whyte is the importance of spending quality time alone, preferably in nature, in order to pursue the delusional lover that is my inner self. In my early life I was always preoccupied with pursuing women and succeeding at work so that I could attract or keep the woman who was the object of my current pursuit. And I always tried to gain more power and prestige so that I could prove that I was a man of substance and not an invisible man I feared I really was.
After discussing the importance of doing a good job and finding a life partner, he goes on to discuss the third marriage. “Tree Weddings”, Whyte says,
“he sees that other equally strange human need, to be completely and utterly alone, trawl into the deep riches of an inner peace and quiet, where the self can really seem malleable, mobile, boundless and inviolable, invulnerable to those invisible wounds inflicted from partners and spouses, undisturbed by commitment, drowned in his clamor children and untouched with our endless nature meetings.”
Only a poet like Whyte could capture the many ways in which I had become addicted to love and work. Like many men I know, it took me losing a marriage or two and getting fired from a job or two to finally get permission to find the inner lover I had abandoned so long ago. For me, I began to know my true self on a trip to Alaska when I was thirty-six after my first marriage ended and a second trip to Alaska with my men’s group when I was fifty-six.
I had to get away from work and women to find what I was afraid to see and come to terms with them father’s wound that I experienced when my middle-aged father overdosed on sleeping pills when I was five. Although he didn’t die, our lives were never the same.
I realized that my desire to achieve success at work and find the perfect marriage partner was driven, in part, by unhealed trauma from my childhood. Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) studies have shown that our early experiences can have a significant impact on our adult health and well-being. Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. For example:
- Experiencing violence, abuse or neglect.
- Living in a home where someone has substance abuse or mental health problems.
- Witness violence in the home or community.
- Having a parent who is physically or emotionally absent.
One of the most common and damaging ACEs is growing up with an absent father. Psychologist James Hollis says,
“A father may be physically present but absent in spirit. His absence may be literal through death, divorce, or dysfunction, but more often it is a symbolic absence through silence and the inability to communicate what he also may not have learned.”
Roland Warren, former President of the National Fatherhood Initiative, says:
“Kids have a hole in their soul in the shape of their dad. And if a father is unwilling or unable to fill that role, it can leave a wound that doesn’t heal easily.”
This was certainly the truth for me. The hurt definitely affected my relationships, my sense of self and my professional life.
Although I achieved great outward success at work, it felt more addictive than freeing. My mantra was “too much is not enough”. I always felt like I had something to prove in all aspects of my life. Healing the father wound was crucial to integrating all three of my marriages—at work, in love, and in myself.
Many people who have suffered from adverse childhood experiences and early trauma feel that their lives will forever be limited and that they will never be truly happy. The good news from the Harvard results, as well as other long-term studies, shows that healing can happen regardless of difficult early lives. It helps when we can acknowledge our hurts and talk about our experiences instead of trying to forget they ever happened.
In the good life Drs. Waldinger and Schulz conclude, “As adults, participants in the Harvard study who were able to recognize challenges and talk about them more openly appeared to have a similar ability to draw support from others. Being open and clear about one’s experiences offers another person an opportunity to be helpful.”
Too often, men try to hide their wounds to appear strong. We are afraid of appearing weak and vulnerable. However, I have discovered that our vulnerability is our superpower. My wife, Carlin, has often told me that my willingness to be vulnerable is what she loves and admires most about me. Her love has gone a long way in helping me heal from my first losses. He also said that one of the main reasons we’ve had a successful marriage of forty-four years is because I’ve been in a men’s group for forty-five years.
Among the most important findings from the Harvard Studies was that regardless of our early traumas, there were two vital things that allowed men to find true happiness and joy: “Meeting a caring friend and marrying an accepting spouse ». Cultivating our friendships and close partnerships takes time and effort, but there is nothing more important.
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