My husband and I have been married three times. To each other!
Remembering Dr. Stephen Kaufman, my kids' first pediatrician.
My family moved to San Francisco when my (now middle) son was a few months old. Among the many things I needed to find was a new pediatrician. I think I went on my insurance company’s online doctor database, plugged in a few search terms, and voila! Out came a few names within a short driving distance. I was intrigued by one Dr. Stephen Kaufman’s hyperlinked “Philosophy of Pediatrics,” so I thought I’d give him a try.
Well, were me and the family in for a treat over the next decade. Dr. Kaufman was quite advanced in years, to say the least, and thus had seen everything under the sun re: children. He also had a hilarious story to tell every time we saw him, and a very thick Long Island Jewish accent to convey the story with. Here are a few that I still remember and think about, 15 years later:
The One About Being Married Four Times
It was the first appointment that both me and my husband attended with our son. After a few cordialities Dr. Kaufman announced, “So kids, my wife and I have been married four times!” My husband and I looked at each other slightly aghast. “To each other!” he continued. Increase in aghastness. “Life happens, kids. You get a new job, someone gets sick, you have kids, there’s a random new interest to pursue; you gotta roll with it. Reinvent yourselves every so often. Keeps things fresh!” We then realized that they had indeed been married four times, just never divorced.
I’ve found this really encouraging over the years. It ties in nicely with what our marriage counselor once told us when we were having the first real challenge to our union (i.e. moving onto our second marriage); namely, that healthy relationships are the ones where partners can go back and forth from one another. You come in as a couple united, then you separate as two people. Come back in, come back out. Let your partner be a true other that you choose to become one with. Of course you need unity on the most important things, but other than that, explore. Bring back what you find.
Up to that point, healthy marriage to me actually meant absolute union on all things. And if there was ever a discrepancy, it was me who had to submit myself into the void to keep the marriage intact. Yet here we were, trying to have separate opinions on something very important, and we found it so threatening. Luckily, our counselor presented a different way of considering the issue at hand, and it was so freeing. Or in Dr. Kaufman’s terms, we’re probably on our 3rd marriage or so, after about 20 years. To each other!
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