My husband picked up a book from the loaded bookcase behind the dining room table after lunch today, and started reading aloud.  The book was Nabokov’s lectures at a Toronto college, one that we read a long time ago.  It felt like old times, when he used to read aloud bits of passages from books he was reading to share them with whomever was there to listen.  Today, it felt hopeful and sad at the same time.

The love of books was always at the base of our couplehood: browsing in book stores, buying each other books as presents, sharing our reading, and later reading to our children and infecting them with our book bug.  Even when I moved from Israel to Canada I first shipped my book collection by mail, taking many boxes to the post office.  Books and music.  My meagre record collection was what we listened to on my record player in a box, until we purchased a decent stereo system as a wedding present for ourselves.  We only had funds for one good speaker; the other one I bought for my loved one for his next birthday.  We still have the speakers hooked up to the radio in our bedroom, and they sound as good now as they sounded then.

Settling in a new country for me, first with 2 children, and then with the third who came along, changed the dynamics in our couplehood.  Our constant guide was the book by the Gesell institute about child rearing from birth to 10 years old.  We could swear that the children read the book and behaved just like it predicted. It prepared us for their terrible twos, and consoled us that better times were to come.  It helped bring both of us to be involved and supportive at each stage.  We both came from different cultural homes: mine was open, loving, and touchy-feely, while his was secretive and restrained emotionally.  It took a lot of adjusting, and establishing an atmosphere of open discussion about all subjects – as well as much hugging.  My partner got used to the open discussion, but was always a bit restrained about hugging or kissing me in front of the kids.

It was also an adjustment for me to stay home rather than go to work.  For the first time in my adult life, I was not earning a salary.  I found it hard not to have a separate bank account.  I complained that it is insulting to ask for money in order to buy my partner a birthday present.  We solved the problem by opening a separate bank account for me in which a set amount of money was deposited each month for grocery shopping and whatever else I wanted to use it for.  Later on, when the children were more independent, I received a position at the university and my salary went into my account.  That was also the time when my partner became more involved with the children since I was still at work when they came home from school.  He took on the responsibility of coming home early to be with them, engage with them, and sometimes start dinner.  We used to laugh, because the children were watching TV and when they saw him coming through the window, they quickly turned off the TV and came down to sit with their homework. We found it amusing that the children did not realize we knew what they did.  After all the TV was still warm, making it obvious.

Time passed and they all left home.  We were all alone again and needed to renew our couplehood.  To change phase.  We both retired, except for me there was never a full retirement.  I love what I am doing; being an art therapist and supervisor gives meaning to my life.  Our lives changed again.  We moved back to Israel, to my dream home overlooking mountains and steeped in greenery with trees and roses and freesias.  A paradise for me, a compromise for him.  Our first granddaughter was born 7 months before we left, so we travelled back and forth to enjoy her and the other grandchildren who arrived during the next 10 years.

We settled into snow-bird mode, spending 5 months during the summer in Canada and 7 months in Israel during the winter.  Ideal, people would tell us, but it became harder with passing years.  Travel is no longer what it used to be, and we are no longer what we used to be.

War, health issues, and global changes force us to rethink our ability to maintain snow-birding.  We have entered a new phase in our couplehood.  We depend more on each other, hug more, need each other’s support, and gradually forget more of what we knew.  We both live one day at a time, and adjust more or less to changes as they come.  Two steps backward and one forward.  One more than the other.  We celebrate the small victories, the sunshine, the sense of humor that we still share.  We are fortunate to have the love and the care of our close family and friends, and many joys to look forward to.  This is a new version of our couplehood.  A bit mellowed, a bit fragile, more flexible to adapt to the changes that may occur more frequently these days, but still holding, still loving, still open to accept what the future brings – with grace, smiles, and hope.

“Love arrives when our boundaries disappear, becoming open and accepting to another being.” Brian Spielmann