When I was a teenager, I loved reading the popular “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” column in my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal every month. Each half of the couple would describe his or her marital difficulties, and then a counselor from the American Institute of Family Relations would explain how the marriage was saved (or not).
We all enjoy reading about other people’s conflicts and problems. It’s not mere voyeurism; often, their issues help us gain perspective on our own difficulties.
In her new book Are We There Yet? The Road-Trip to a Great Marriage, American-born Jerusalemite Chana Levitan, a couples therapist and educator, presents the stories of 18 couples who overcame specific roadblocks in their relationships and are still driving that car called marriage into the future.
“When we get married, we are all amateurs, learning to ‘drive.’ We embark on our marriage road trip filled with enthusiasm, but at some point we’ll all take a wrong turn.
“For some of us, the wrong turn will lead us to becoming enmeshed with our spouse and losing ourselves. Others will take the road that leads them to keeping too much distance.
“There are those of us who will veer off onto the path of trying to change our spouse, while others will hit a wall and get stuck in anger or anxiety,” she writes.
“Ultimately, we all need to figure out and navigate our own unique road trip.”
Even though every story is unique, Levitan points to one commonality essential to success: the concept of differentiation. “Differentiation is THE ONE THING that sits at the foundation of all the happily married couples in this book,” she writes.
“Differentiation is the ability to maintain my sense of self as I discover how different my spouse and I are – while at the same time learning to stay connected... The key to real closeness is first to notice how different we are and see our spouse as a valid, distinct person from ourselves; from that acceptance, we can choose real closeness.”
Each couple in the book “hit bumps that were big enough to cause a permanent crash. But by embracing the wisdom of differentiation, they turned those bumps into springboards for growth, propelling their marriages forward.”
Levitan identifies the common roadblocks to differentiation: blame, self-condemnation, dependency, and withdrawal. When a couple is not differentiating, “they get locked into a cycle of negative behaviors in which they often trigger each other.”
However, getting over bumps and roadblocks is not a “one-and-done.”
“Differentiating and creating an enduring love is an ongoing process,” Levitan writes.
“And so, on some level, we’re never ‘there yet,’ in the same way that we’re never done with our personal growth. … Perhaps the most essential lesson from these [18] couples is that it’s the journey itself that truly matters.”
Levitan has more than 30 years of teaching and counseling experience and has written two other books: I Only Want to Get Married Once and That’s Why I Married You.
She instructs and supervises therapists at the Neve Family Institute in Jerusalem, works with couples in her private practice, and lectures internationally on dating, relationships, and marriage.
In the Introduction of Are We There Yet?, Levitan acknowledges that “divorce is sometimes the only viable solution in cases of abuse, unchecked mental illness, or unchecked addictions.” However, the book is focused on maintaining lasting relationships.
The book is written and organized in an accessible, breezy style, with pull quotes and end-of-chapter bullet points to emphasize the main takeaway messages.
Though I tend to roll my eyes at pop psychology lingo (the word “baggage” appears 24 times, for example), this approach ensures that the presented ideas are easy to understand and assimilate.
Here are just some of the gems you might want to underline as you read:
“Learning to be close to someone in a healthy, balanced way takes years and involves some trial and error. But it’s well worth the effort because marriage is one of life’s greatest rewards.”
“I’ve seen couples who swear by not going to bed angry, and couples who swear by going to bed angry in the interests of not arguing while overtired. It’s really an issue that each couple must figure out for themselves.”
“Avoiding conflict is a bit of a default reaction for so many of us. The problem is that in the long run, this avoidance erodes the closeness in a relationship.”
“Take responsibility for your own emotional regulation by self-soothing. [Levitan includes 26 suggestions for how to self-soothe.] Even if only one spouse is in the calm zone, it significantly reduces the likelihood of escalation.”
“One of the effects of trauma is that it keeps the brain in fight-or-flight mode, which makes it more difficult to maintain your sense of self. Therefore, it typically takes more effort for a trauma survivor to successfully maintain a sense of self in a relationship. But … trauma does not need to stand in the way of a great marriage.”
“One of the most loving things we can do in our marriage is to learn to manage (regulate) our own anxiety and negative emotions.”
The reviewer made aliyah in 2007 following 14 years as a features writer and copy editor at The Record in New Jersey. She was the associate editor of ISRAEL21c for 13 years.
- ARE WE THERE YET? THE ROAD-TRIP TO A GREAT MARRIAGE
- By Chana Levitan
- Gefen Publishing House
- 318 pages, $20