Bernard Axelrad Scholarship Fund

As a child I loved fairy tales, and the phrase, "They lived happily ever after," was the staple form of ending denoting everlasting marital bliss. Then, unfortunately, the real world intruded.

So many marriages are failing! The statistics say one of every two. It's hard to find a silver lining among those dismal figures, but there is one: it does give people a second chance.

(The ensuing commentary, while in some instances applicable, is not directed at the loss of a spouse by death. That's another topic.)

To offset the heartache of a failed marriage we have another shot at the brass ring, presumably wiser if sadder. Once the pain of it all is put behind, each of the participants is at liberty to start over again. It does represent a golden opportunity to commence another quest for that elusive marital paradise — sort of like getting a chance to relive one's life forearmed with awareness of what had occurred previously.

Let me hasten to point out that the failure of a first or earlier marriage does not necessarily imply fault on the part of either of the parties. I sometimes think that if the spouses of an unsuccessful first marriage met at a later time in their lives and under different circumstances, the relationship would be satisfying indeed.

A first marriage is often weighed down by financial problems and the raising of children, and the stresses that they engender. Yet working out those very problems, together, can vastly strengthen the bonds between a couple, even when the way is fractious and tortuous.

In my opinion, a primary reason for failed initial marriages is the inexperience of the parties and their not really knowing what to expect and what it takes to make it work. Living with someone in some semblance of harmony, day in and day out, in good times and in bad, and with all of its constraints and pressures, has to be a major accomplishment.

For the uninitiated it is not easy to see and accept that there is another point of view — another way of doing it — equally as valid if different. Often, the arrogance of being right affects the young. When older, you know from quotidian experience that there are diverse ways of doing things. Life's tutoring, along with age, tend to make one more mellow and more willing to compromise and 'look away.'

In one of the earliest divorce cases I handled, the husband, a rather will known impresario, divorced his wife, my client, over a seemingly insignificant incident. They engaged in a bitter battle over whether Charlie Chaplin should be prevented from re-entering the U.S. on political and moral grounds. This apparently trivial incident was probably only the visible culmination of simmering myriad differences between them, but it served to end their marriage.

In a marriage gone awry, it is very difficult to turn back from the continuing escalation of the negative reactive process. One spouse says or does something, often minor, which irritates and nettles the other, and if not dealt with satisfactorily at the inception it develops into a canker. It comes up again and again, and without resolution, inexorably erodes good will and creates a smoldering stockpile of resentment.

One of the things that I've observed is that spousal patterns of behavior become rooted, and conditioned responses follow.

For example: One spouse is neat, the other untidy. Instead of coming to some halfway workable compromise, in due time, if not addressed, the parties proceed to act out their annoyance. The tidy one hides the glasses, pens or other misplaced articles to punish the sloppy one; while the messy one almost purposefully is slovenly to get back at or gratify anger at the other. Meanwhile, no word passes between them.

Another instance is when the passenger spouse admonishes the driver to watch a red light or drive slower, or gives some other `helpful' driving hint, and the driving spouse invariably does the opposite — with a vengeance — and with teeth clenched!

As negatively reactive as such responses are between that married pair, the same behavior on the part of either of them might evoke a more benign response from a different help-mate in a second marriage.

I can always recognize a solid marriage when the husband, in company, launches into one of his terribly unfunny jokes, and the wife doesn't make a face; or, when the wife insists on his parking in a paying parking facility and the husband complies without comment or nasty facial gestures!

In love matches we often give ourselves up as rational, logical people, and are not fully in control. When the romantic period passes (as, alas, it invariably does), we are not comfortable being possessed by another. If, as the poets write, love is blind, then a rude awakening may ensue.

Irritating patterns of behavior are pretty hard to break once they gain a toehold in a relationship, and then become a source of on-going friction and continuing ill will. All too often we observe couples snipe at one another or make seemingly jocular, yet belittling, comments about one another in company. It's often a manifestation of antagonisms not readily expressed in direct confrontation.

There are times when separation and divorce may be preferable to two people locked into lives of quiet desperation or rancorous combat.

I shouldn't generalize, but I feel that my generation did not have good role models in their own fathers as husbands. Mine, like many European-born shtetl men, felt that the man was the head of the house and the woman's place was in the kitchen and two steps behind while out walking. That's what I saw, what I grew up with, and even though I don't like it, it was what I had to overcome over time.

People in a later marriage are usually older and more experienced, know better what to expect as well as what they are seeking, and are at a time in life when some of the earlier pressures no longer exist. Perhaps one enters a second relationship more warily, but better prepared.

With a fresh start, there are no subsisting, irritating patterns of behavior to haunt you. It's true that new ones may arise, equally annoying, but one is usually more mellow and can deal more effectively with them. Of course, if not, the second relationship may deteriorate like the first.

Even a good marriage needs continual nurturing and reinvigorating. To rest on past laurels is to run the risk that the once healthy vine will wither. Men and women come to a new relationship with more of an open mind rather than the marital truce mentality which often exists in many old marriages that endure.

It is wiser to seek someone who complements rather than compliments you. When younger, one tends to seek someone like oneself, when under actual living conditions a spouse with different temperament, interests and style, which are supplementary, augur best for marital success.

When all is said and done, and all the data analyzed, tabulated and dissected, the components for an enduring and happy marriage defy classification. In most cases it just happens, and mere mortals don't understand why — although it doesn't stop some of us from pontificating on it in hindsight.

If it were easy to figure out, more people would avoid the trauma of divorce and match up right the first time.

But if you didn't manage it the first time, there's always a second chance. It's consoling to feel there is life at the end of a marriage.

AUTHOR'S SECOND CHANCE. Bernard Axelrad shaved his familiar beard when he recently entered into his own second marriage. All of us at the Record; both those who agree with his political views and those who don't, wish him and Lillian all health and happiness.