How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

by James J. Sexton

When I was a teenager, my mom used to tell me not to put anything in writing that I would feel uncomfortable seeing published on the front page of the New York Times.

Why, of all the people on the planet, would the person you married be the one you always have to be singularly critical of? Why hold the person with whom you signed a lifetime commitment to such a specific and unreasonably high standard? How come we’re encouraged to give our friends a break and understand that from time to time they might not be their best selves—yet we’re not equally encouraged to give our spouses a similar level of leniency?

Love is a verb. It’s about rolling your sleeves up and giving the effort.

The romance in the movie Titanic is bullshit. I feel the same way about Romeo and Juliet and other such “tragic” love stories. At least one of the parties dies before they get to see and live for a while with the yet unexpressed, more annoying parts of their partner … which is when real love kicks in. Or doesn’t. Anyone can love someone “forever” when that someone is really good-looking and hangs around for only a few days before drowning in the Atlantic. That’s a vacation hookup.

Here’s the secret revealed: Marriage is not hard work, as long as you don’t consider paying attention hard work.

How hard is it to be nice to your spouse? To show them some small kindness? Okay, maybe it’s unfair to call a blowjob a “small kindness”; it seems, without question, to require agility, tenacity, and something that merits real appreciation. To be honest, it’s a miracle.

Making each other feel special. What if it’s really that simple?

“Women marry men, expecting (and hoping) they can be changed—and they don’t; men marry women, expecting (and hoping) they won’t change—and they do.”

Did I overlook Option #4, couples therapy? No. In my profession, couples therapy is affectionately referred to as “delaying the inevitable.” It’s a bizarre hybrid of the least effective aspects of combat and counseling: On one hand, confrontation without the authentic “no holds barred” catharsis; on the other hand, an attempt to gain insight but without the focus of looking solely at yourself or solely at the other person. It’s like trying to learn to juggle with five balls all at once, right from the first lesson.

Recently, a female client and I were chatting during a break in testimony. We got onto the topic of “The Moment”—the moment when she realized, for the first time, that the marriage was over. (It’s a topic that interests me greatly; I tend to ask about it, to enlighten me for helping future clients.) Her response surprised me. “It was about two years ago, on a Saturday night, we were having sex—actually in the middle of having sex—and I remember a specific thought popped into my head, and I realized my marriage was probably over.” What, I asked, was the thought? “‘One of these days I really need to get laid.’”

The first year of marriage is the toughest, right? And sometimes sex isn’t always the greatest, right?” Much as I believe in brutal honesty for all, including friends, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that no, in my experience (and I don’t believe it was novel), the first year of marriage was mostly about putting together IKEA furniture, paying off student loans, and having insane amounts of great sex.

My mother imparted a lot of commonsense wisdom to me. The two most profound thoughts: “The hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing” and “The forgiveness is in the forgetting.”