During the following year, John and Evelyn lived apart, though saw each other on frequent occasions. They decided to move back together after this year long trial separation, and within a year had reestablished a supportive relationship. At the time when they were interviewed, John and Evelyn had decided to take a year off from their work so that they might live in a very different region of the United States, while both worked on projects of specific interest to each of them. The children were off to college, so this seemed like a perfect time for John and Evelyn to reestablish their old, pre-children rapport, while working out a new way of living together. During this year of intensive interaction, John and Evelyn established more open communication with one another, while pursuing their individual areas of interest in new and vigorous ways.
The Variety of Remarriages
In our interviews we found that remarriage takes many different forms, though there are certain common factors: a willingness to risk the relationship in order to make it work, a significant restructuring of the relationship with each party making some concessions and reframing the relationship in new terms, and a resultant revitalization of the relationship based on this new alignment.
David and Meryl exemplify the typical remarriage scenario. They had been married for twelve years and lived together a total of fifteen years when they were interviewed. Both of them are in their mid-thirties and they have two children, ages 2 and 12. Meryl indicates that she has always responded to David’s temper by refusing to communicate, i.e. “clamming up,” which was the strategy she also used around her stepfather when she was younger. For David, anger took the form of verbal outbursts and Meryl was unable to believe that anyone who loved another was capable of treating them in such a manner. When faced with the wall of silence, David felt frustrated and unwilling to even try to change what was going on, thereby totally shutting off any chance of communication or resolution of the conflict. Eventually (perhaps a week later), Meryl would explode and David “couldn’t see where her anger was coming from.”
