Q My second marriage isn’t going well and I flirt with my first wife
when we meet to discuss our kids. I have the urge to turn the clock back -
is this normal?
DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD
A Your problem is an understandable response to meeting someone with
whom you have once had an intense relationship. This happens to many people,
but retro sex is not a good plan. Frequently, those who put the clock back
and remarry live to regret this triumph of hope over experience.
Recently, Times2 carried a feature that illustrated a tendency for
people to choose partners who are similar in appearance to their former
lovers. Penny Wark, who wrote it, found that five women in Boris Becker’s
earlier life bore a striking resemblance to each other. Similarly, Becker’s
previous wife was pictured with a man who could have been his doppelgänger.
Most psychologists believe that we acquire an image of the ideal partner from
the early influence of the parent of the opposite gender. So girls have a
tendency to fall for men who have a passing resemblance to their fathers,
whereas men’s partners have something of their mothers about them. The
attraction may have psychological and emotional components, as well as
physical. It could be that some of the personality traits of the parent have
made an indelible impression on the offspring. When they seek a mate, this
subconscious memory encourages them to try to recreate the affection and
security they received as children.
Two confusing factors can confound this oversimplification. Some people, such
as Narcissus, the beautiful youth of Greek mythology, fall for a reflection
of themselves. Similarly, others may not be repelled by characteristics that
the world in general would consider difficult, even antisocial, if they have
been brought up in a household in which these features were commonplace. I
once asked an Italian patient how he remained calm as his wife raved and
ranted around their house. He smiled and said: “Don’t all women behave like
this? Certainly my mother, aunts and sisters do.” Dramas had been a regular
feature of his childhood and he felt at home with them. He may even have
enjoyed the excitement and emotional tension they engendered. It is
remarkable how often a patient with the symptoms of a personality disorder
or psychiatric condition will marry someone who either has the same disorder
or who has been exposed to it in their family lives.
The same features that made you lust after your former wife when you first met
her are still present, but her appeal isn’t obscured by recent savage rows
and wounding insults. Furthermore, the sense of familiarity of the routine
of your marriage bed has faded so that you are tempted to rekindle the
embers of the earlier fire that inflamed you. Don’t go down that road.
Presumably, once the lust that empowered your earlier romance with your former
wife died, problems arose. These stalled your relationship and prevented you
from moving on to the next stage of marriage. If you were both single and
could retrace your steps, you would only tread them again and be back in the
same solicitors’ offices. As you, and presumably your former wife, both have
new partners you could also endanger these new relationships. One final
thought; some psychologists suggest that men and women may have an
unconscious desire to wreck a former partner’s new relationship. Resist that
urge.
Dr Thomas Stuttaford, The Times doctor, spent many years
working in a genitourinary clinic
SUZI GODSON
A Lots of people who have been through a divorce look back and wonder
whether they did the right thing. They ask whether they could have behaved
better or made more of an effort to sort things out.
In many cases, if the couple had sought help as soon as they felt their
relationship was going wrong, they probably could have avoided divorce.
Relate (www.relate.org.uk) says that
most of the couples it sees have endured seven years of fighting before
seeking help.
Unfortunately, by the time a couple make a decision to get help, one or both
parties has often given up on the relationship. It’s a tragedy because
anyone who has ever been through a divorce understands how hellish it is. In
the heat of the moment, when all you can think about is the freedom that a
decree absolute will bring, you can kid yourself that that piece of paper
draws a line under the past. It doesn’t.
Even couples who don’t have children are surprised at how long it takes to
move on from a marriage. Throw kids into the equation and it becomes
virtually impossible. The logistics of kids moving between houses, split
Christmases and alternate birthdays involve negotiation and planning, and
that can be a tall order for two people who have been locked in conflict for
years. Research has shown that children from divorced parents fare better if
parental conflict is contained, if they have economic and emotional
stability, if they maintain a close relationship with both parents, and if
they have a say in shaping access arrangements. Most divorced parents will
do their best to deliver some, if not all, of that, but in return their
children are expected to adjust to new relationships over which they have no
control.
Four weddings out of every ten in the UK are second marriages, but at least 60
per cent of these end in divorce. Nobody knows what the cumulative impact of
exposure to successive divorces will have on children, but there is no doubt
that those who fare best will be the ones whose parents continue to put
their needs first. You owe it to your children to make the effort to
maintain what hard-earned stability they now have in their lives, but your
current behaviour displays a casual attitude to their feelings. They were
hauled across the coals during your divorce and they have only just
established a reasonable relationship with your second wife, yet you are
irresponsible enough to consider reversing all this upheaval.
Christine Northam, a Relate counsellor, would describe someone like you as
having an “attachment problem”. She’d say that you “feel the grass is always
greener”. I’d say that you need a good slap. To escape the failure of your
second marriage by seeking solace with your previous wife suggests such an
enormous lack of integrity that it is hard to see how you could have
persuaded one woman to marry you, let alone two. My advice is to do the
right thing, for once. If you can figure out why you screwed up your first
marriage, you might have a chance of salvaging your second. Being able to
admit that you have a problem is half the solution and, as Northam says:
“Most people say they know themselves better after counselling and feel it
has been a chance to grow.” Grow up, I’d say.
Suzi Godson is the author of The Sex Book (Cassell, £16.99) and
The Body Bible (Penguin, £16.99)
The reason the 2nd marriages end in divorce is simple. Those who have been married once before and go through the stress and despair of a divorce and find they have lived through it are willing to end another (2nd) marriage sooner. My father was married to my mother for 16 years. When they divorced, it took my dad something like 7 years to remarry. When that marriage was over, it was easier for him to realize it and make the call to legally end it. He has sinced moved on to his third. He loves his current wife, but knows if he needed to end it, he could - and would live through it as well.
Wendy, McAllen, Texas
Dr Stuttaford and Ms Godson
I am surprised at you. I find it quite hard to read that you can suggest a slap yet diagnose personality disorder just like that. It requires time and skill and various tests such as SCID-II.
As someone with a personality disorder who struggles with relationships but know many who after good evidence based treatment have very good relationships -long term ones -I find it a bit negative what you have suggested.I am fortunate i that I am one of the few who has had good treatment by Professor Anthony Bateman -a world expert on the NHS who does get people with PD better-not cured but where they manage intimate relationships and have much better stable out of crises lives.
Attachment disorders arecomplex and take more than a letter in to a newspaper to "diagnose".
I would suggest yes a visit to relate or a psychiatrist but a slap? That's as abusive as sleeping around.
Expert by Experience
North London Hub
MHRN
IMperial College London
Fenella Lemonsky, Whetstone, London