They immediately ran into family problems. Her grandfather (a lay church leader) strongly objected to her marriage to a Jew. Her mother opposed Dan because of his age and previous marriage. Even her brother gave Dan a cold shoulder, worrying that Dan would take advantage of Sarah’s youth and inexperience. Despite extensive resistance to their marriage, Dan and Sarah decided to get married. They paid a heavy price, however, in that Sarah isolated for many years from her family and the two ended up establishing a relationship that was quite closed, at least with regard to communication with family members-.
The differences in background (religion, age, previous marital experience) also created problems inside their relationship, Dan and Sarah had to learn much about each other before they could truly be accepting of one another. They knew little about each other when they were first married since they shared so little in common. Tied into a closed relationship, Dan and Sarah had very few external resources to which they could turn individually or collectively for insights, reassurance or simply a “breather” from one another. As a result, they had to work out their differences directly with each other. They had to rely on each other for patience, tolerance and persistence. Fortunately, for this couple, the relationship was strong enough to endure the difficult years, and the differences between Dan and Sarah served as rich sources of new learning and maturation for both of them.
In more recent years, strong, but closed, relationships have often been established among homosexual men and women. Gay men and lesbian women often must place a protective shield between themselves and other people. While our society has made great progress in recent years regarding increased knowledge about and acceptance of differing sexual orientations, the massive onset of AIDS during the decade of the 1990s produced new, irrational fears and led to renewed protectiveness among many gay couples and even some lesbian couples
