For as long as I can remember I’ve been reading about people who resign from their positions in different professions and say, “I’m resigning because I want to spend more time with my family.” In most cases none of that is true. They’re not resigning. They’re being fired and are given the courtesy to allow them to say they’re resigning, and in most cases they really don’t want to spend more time with their families.
My case is different. As I’ve said, I left the movies years ago because I really did want to spend more time with my family. My son had turned six and was going to enter first grade. I didn’t think it would be the best idea for him to continue to travel with my wife and me all over the country.
Something had to give, so I resigned from the movies so I could spend more time with my family. I began my cable show in the New York area. I always loved to spend time with my family, but as years went by, my son got active in sports. My wife was getting book after book published. She was constantly being asked to write books. I’ve written a lot of books that have been published, but no one ever asked me to write one, so while I wanted to spend more time with my family, my family didn’t really want to spend more time with me. Oh, they love me, but spend more time with me—I don’t think so.
So the next time I hear some person who’s resigning say he wants to spend more time with his family, someone should ask his family if they want to spend more time with him. Never assume anything.
My wife and son went on a trip recently. They, of course, invited me to join them, but they know me well enough to know I’d choose to stay home.
While they were away, I did something I’m not allowed to do when they’re here, which is throw an empty water bottle across the room into a small wicker basket. Even then, I only did it in my study, not in the room in which I’m forbidden to do it. Their will is strong.
I thought I could get it in within ten tries. It took me fifteen. Naturally, I thought with practice I’d do better on the second try, but the second time it took me sixteen tries. The third time I was sure I could do it in ten tries, but it took me thirty-five throws to get it in.
I told this story to a friend of mine who was thinking of quitting her pursuit to be a nurse because of… something. She said that because of that story, which some would say was about failure but I would say was about perseverance, she decided to continue on her difficult journey to be a nurse.
By the way, when my wife and son got home, I tried it again in my study, and on my fourth try I went from thirty-five attempts to get the bottle in to twenty.
The lesson? Perseverance is a necessity whatever the goal.
A postscript. About six months later, I tried throwing the bottle in the basket again—in my study, of course. I got it in on the second try.
I like to listen to music on the radio, and maybe it’s just me, but lately there seem to be more and more songs abut someone who can’t go on without someone else: “When you came into my life, I knew you’d be my wife. Without you, I can’t go on.” “There’ll never be another one like you. What am I going to do? I can’t go on.”
Now, it’s nice to be with someone you can’t go on without, but if you actually expect to feel that way most of the time, you have unrealistic expectations, which lead to broken relationships, divorces, and a lot of other bad stuff.
This is a lyric I heard in a song I was listening to recently: “If you’d stay, I’d subtract twenty years from my life. I’d fall down on my knees, kiss the ground that you walk on, if only I could hold you again.” Now that’s what you call being attracted to someone! Even more extreme is this lyric from Kiss Me, Kate: “So taunt me and hurt me, Deceive me, desert me, I’m yours till I die…” Desert me? I’m yours till I die?!
In the movies the young guy and the young girl are cute and charming even when things are tough between them. Try to compete with that in real life. In real life? The young guy and the young girl couldn’t.
You’re not always going to look up and see an adoring gaze from the other person. You’re just not. You might even catch your partner in a “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with this person” look. “I can’t go on without you? You are my reason for living?” It’s an interesting thought. Maybe we can all experience it from time to time, but personally I like this one: “Keep smiling. Keep shining. Knowing you can always count on me, for sure. That’s what friends are for.”
My wife saw me tell a story on the Johnny Carson show years ago and thought to herself, I’m going to marry him. She had gone to Dartmouth and had reviewed books and films for the Times of London. Elissa is an inveterate viewer of English mysteries. I’m just glad that before she met me, she hadn’t met Alfred Hitchcock. She got an assignment from American Film Magazine to interview me and called. I accepted the invitation. She was totally professional and quite reserved, and yet one hour into the interview the tape recorder was shut off when I asked, “Who are you?” We discussed getting married within ninety minutes of meeting. I told my son about how his mother saw me tell a story on the Tonight Show and thought to herself, “I’m going to marry him.” My son said, “She just didn’t know you were never going to stop telling them.” Since so many marriages don’t last, we could all say making a marriage last may be the most daunting challenge. Any two people who spend a lot of time together will find endless things to disagree about.
In my experience most men feel women are too critical, and most women feel that men lack sensitivity. I’m sure some would say men are too critical, and women lack sensitivity. It’s all true on any given day.
I heard one of my favorite comedy lines from the comedian Mal Z. Lawrence. A man gets up in the morning, crosses around the foot of the bed, his wife lifts her sleep mask and looks at him. The man says, “Good morning, dear, have I offended you in any way?”
However, in my personal experience, I know way more offensive men than women, but since I’ve never gotten out and around that much, who knows?
I do know this. The one essential ingredient a marriage must have is the knowledge you can count on the other person, no matter what. Other elements of a relationship may vary, but if you aren’t sure you can count on your partner, and by that I also mean trust, your marriage most likely won’t last. “Count on” to me means trust and goodwill always. I have that in my marriage, and I feel blessed. At this writing we’ve been married for twenty-five years.
Actually, I feel blessed in many ways. However, unfortunately or maybe in a larger sense fortunately, I am also on a daily basis agitated by knowing there are thousands of people among our 2.3 million prison population who absolutely should not be in prison at all! I’ve talked about them earlier in this book, but it’s something I just can’t drop. My intention is to make people as aware of this as I can, because when this fact becomes better known, this grave injustice and others could be made right. That’s my biggest goal for the rest of my life.