The Sunday New York Times’ Modern Love Column is one I never miss. I may not (usually don’t) get around to reading the rest of the Sunday paper, but Modern Love is the first page I turn to, where every week a different guest writes an essay about some aspect of love. I’ve read stories of long-distance romance, failed romance (so many failed love stories), romance after death or divorce or prolonged illness, young love, old love, and lots of middle-aged love.
One of my favorites was a love story about a man and his mother’s food. After years of marriage this man was figuring out how get his Korean mother to pack him less homemade Korean food each week because his wife (a restaurant critic and excellent cook) wanted him to eat her food as well.
And then last week there was the entertainment writer who had interviewed so many Hollywood female stars, he felt disappointed with real women.
I know, I weep for both of them.
This week’s column is by Daniel Jones, the editor of Modern Love, who writes about the 50,000 essays he has received over the years, all asking variations of the same questions: how does one find love, or how does one get it back?
As for those in long-term relationships? Jones writes, “… it’s not really love they want back as much as attention, excitement and passion. No one doubts the enduring benefits of long-term relationships. But marriage can also get boring, punctuated with deadening routines, cyclical arguments and repetitive conversations.”
Jones believes people in long-term relationships fall under several categories: the sneaks, who engage with people who are not their partner online, trying to feel passion again; the restorers, who read relationship books and engage in restorative marital efforts such as scheduled date and sex nights; and the quashers who know things aren’t good but prefer to quash the truth and stay in denial for about the state of their relationship.
The essay I haven’t read is the one on love and intimacy after children, although I’m sure it’s been printed many times, with many variations. I’d call them (us) the survivalists. These are the couples getting through parenthood together as best as they can. Some of these couples regularly have sex and find their partner desirable, others do not.
Some survivalists are trying to survive until their children are a little older, a little less demanding, hoping that by then they will have time, energy, and money for each other. What these survivalists don’t realize is that even if they get all of the above, what may be gone by then is interest in each other.
Successful survivalists do what they must to get through parenthood. Sure, they tag-team parenting, spend ridiculous amounts of time and attention on their children and talking about their children. But they also maintain interest in each other. They engage with each other as individual adults, not just as co-parents.
Successful survivalists know that just because you can’t stand the sound of your partner’s voice today, doesn’t mean you won’t want to have sex with him tomorrow. They know things are always in flux, always changing, and consistently tending to their interest and awareness of each other will get them through the long-haul.