ThirdAge: It's Steve's line in the book that "the success of a marriage can be measured by the teeth marks in your tongue." Cokie, how does one develop restraint? What's the mental review process that you go through, how do you know when to back off? Do you say a prayer?
Cokie: [Laughs].
Steve: [Laughs]. I want to hear this answer.
Cokie: It is a very good line, because it does basically say that there are lots of times when the smartest thing and the kindest thing and the most successful thing you can do is shut up. And it is so easy to just lash out and get angry and say all the hurtful things you can think of to say. And it's so childish.
Steve: And self-indulgent.
TA: But I wonder with the two of you who are commentators, analysts, pundits, authors, speech givers, you are major expressive avatars here, and how do you know when to back off?
Cokie: Because there are times when you just know it's the wrong thing and you know you'll get over it. You're just that mad at that moment.
Steve: Part of this is also experience. Part of it is looking back on moments in your early marriage when you didn't hold your tongue. And remembering the pain that you caused...
Cokie: Or that you felt.
Steve: And remembering how long and hard it was to rebuild the mutual regard and trust that is caused by intemperance and self-indulgence.
Cokie: I remember always thinking about friends who separated and then came back together, that kind of thing: how can they do that? Because what it would take for me to separate would be such harsh words that they would always be there in the air between you and it would just almost be impossible to forget them. The people you're most likely to do that with is your siblings--[Laughs] to say things you just shouldn't say...
But children also bring out parts of you, I mean, I'm not an angry person, and I had no notion of my capacity for anger until I had children.
TA: That's a very brave admission.
Cokie: Well it's true. You can just get so angry that you're scared at yourself for being that angry.
TA: So how would you manage that?
Cokie: Sometimes I managed it well, and sometimes I managed it badly. Like everybody else. [ Laughs ].
Steve: I do think that experience is the great teacher here. And the memories of the mistakes you made, hopefully you learn something from them. I can remember them with great pain. I can describe how I felt, I can remember the impact my intemperance had on other people. And when I say, "Candor is vastly overrated," I don't mean that you should be dishonest with each other, that's not the same thing, it means that often in the name of candor, what you're being is self-indulgent, hurtful, and selfish. And that tact is vastly underrated. Tact is not the same thing as dishonesty. In the end, any good relationship has to be based on profound honesty, but that's not the same as brutality or self-indulgence.
TA: Contrary to what a lot of the pop psychologists tell us, to get in touch with our inner child, our anger.
Cokie: Right, but that was a child. Let's grow up. Next: Sexual Equality >
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ThirdAge: It's Steve's line in the book that "the success of a marriage can be measured by the teeth marks in your tongue." Cokie, how does one develop restraint? What's the mental review process that you go through, how do you know when to back off? Do you say a prayer?
