In her book, "Secrets of a Very Good Marriage: Lessons From the Sea," Sherry Cohen speaks of a husband who says 10 times a day, "You're more beautiful than ever before and you do not have neck sag." She also speaks of a 30-year old marriage - invincible and viable - that has weathered extremely well over the years.
In her book Cohen likens her marriage to a boat on the sea. Even during courtship she realized that her husband Larry came with a passion for fishing and for the sea. Now, just as then, he still "goes absolutely bonkers when a stupid, ugly flounder bites. . . . He loves me, worships boats."Obviously, Larry's obsession with his boat was hard to take in the beginning, especially because he longed for her to love the boat, also. And she did - "about 39 percent." "There are times when I loath it, when I'm jealous of it, when I want to kick it, sink it," she states. "Because I love him, though, I've allowed myself to be shanghaied almost every weekend in the fishing season. I've tried hard to understand the mentality of the boating man. This is difficult."
Because of her love for Larry - not the boat - for over 30 years Cohen has been at his side as they've battled the brave giant tuna, the elements, and the throat-clutching charges of boatyard mechanics. And, as she's looked back, "as unbelievable as I still find it, almost everything good I've learned about marriage and love and family have come from the sea. The lessons of the sea." The following are a sample of those lessons:
- Tend to the superstructure of the marriage. "If you want a boat, you need a good one," says Cohen. "Not a fancy number with a shower and separate cabins . . . but a boat that's crafted with love and care, a boat whose powerful superstructure can make up for navigational errors, a boat that nurtures as well as pleasures. A good boat that is more forgiving of human mistakes than a showy boats that's good only for taking Larry's clients out for a spin in the harbor."
The couple trust their boat. "No ugly surprises here. You don't have to worry whether the fittings will come loose or the motor drop dead or the back end fall off if we hit a log." To protect their boat, the couple makes very sure they "don't allow dry rot to accumulate in the fittings or flail away at the essential framework."
Neither do they allow "dry rot" to accumulate in their marriage. "In our marriage, although we talk about everything, we don't let it all hang out. We don't go for the juggler." And they follow a cardinal rule: "There is a hallowed point beyond which no temporary anger can be articulated. If we aim for the jugular, there is too much danger for both of us. Cruel words make us tongue-tied, cold-souled, make us want to hurt each other.
"So, we're careful; we never gain our strength through sapping the other's. We always try to think about protecting the dignity of `us' because if we chisel away, even at a good boat, we sink."
- Choose carefully the names you call each other. "We become what we name each other," stresses Cohen. "Call me Rascal and watch how cute and rascally I get. Call me Stubborn and watch.
"What you call a thing almost always has an effect on the thing named. Name a boat Top Gun and it's instantly reborn to surge violently, act hostile, aggressive, angry. Name a boat Ride 'Em Cow-boy and a proud sea vessel becomes a rodeo act. . . . It takes away a craft's dignity to call her Uh-Oh or Water Toy or Drain Bamaged . . . . Such a craft will get even with you one day.
Like boats, names have powerful effects in marriages, too. "Nice, funny, romantic names . . . are the currency of marriage, the coinage of happy families. Tender names, nicknames, sweet names, baby names, poetic names, metaphor names, promissory names, make good connections. Bad names make sour connections."
- Speak your love out loud. Saying it often - saying it enough - makes it invincible. "Larry wants me to love our boat, wants me to love it out loud, wants me to say good things about it with unqualified reference," so knowing what it meant to him, Cohen has tried. "In the beginning, naturally, I qualified my reverence since I come from a long line of qualifying matriarchs. . . . `What a honey of a hull she has, how great the new flybridge seat looks,' I'd say, `but if only her paint weren't flaking, or her cabin were larger, or she had a real toilet with a door. Is that too much to ask for - a door?'
"Didn't work," she reports. "The stroking disappeared in the qualifications. Larry's face fell time and time again." So, after a while, she took to giving unqualified strokes, audible strokes.
Throughout the marriage, Cohen has followed Larry's example, who has been as glowing in his remarks toward his wife as he has toward his boat. She reports: "My face sags with the weight of 50 years; Larry gently strokes my cheekbones and says with such cheekbones, I'll never look old - just check out Hepburn." And when her husband turns her faults into virtues, she is forever grateful to him for sticking up for her. In kind, she'll stick up for him the next time he blunders down the wrong road and everyone else in the car yells.
This may sound like the couple are saints. Not so, Cohen says. But they've "learned that when one verbally strokes, speaks his or her love with clear, unqualified words, then the other is heavily induced to respond in kind."
A beautiful lesson from the sea.