Nobody loves to acquiesce in a relationship just for the sake of keeping the peace—that creates a powder keg. Over time it just builds resentment—whether it’s within a marriage, a friendship, or a professional partnership. I’m not saying anything new. But you have to decide what’s important; you can’t just go along with something for the sake of keeping the peace. It will eat at you—and what does it say to the other person about you? Who are you, and what are you willing to stand up for?
It might be more unpleasant, but you can’t fix a decayed tooth without a root canal.
I can assure you that forty years ago, my current scenario—a marriage grounded in mutual respect, with compromises based on embracing each other, dealing with real issues, and letting go of minor grievances (like the correct way to put on a toilet paper roll)—would have been as impossible to me as learning Greek. But it comes down to what we are preprogrammed to do and what ultimately works in life for each of us.
The core of the problems in my first marriage was that we each fought to get our way—because of what not getting our way represented to each of us. There was so much baggage that anything we argued about or disagreed over was often just a symptom of a power struggle. We could struggle over picking fabric for a chair or choosing a color to paint a wall. But I realize now that wasn’t the issue. The issue was control—who was in charge and who got their way—which would have been much more productive to address head-on. Deciding on the color of a wall had very little to do with the color and everything to do with whose will was going to be imposed on the other. That’s what we all need to strive to avoid: giving something misplaced value or misplaced importance instead of dealing with true issues, and letting problems manifest in things we can’t fix. In other words, on the surface a conflict may appear to be what kind of furniture to have in the house, when really what’s at stake is who’s in charge.
KISS experienced similar problems. At times in the early days there was resentment about who was at the front of the stage or who had the most songs on an album And rather than deal with that, we tried to undermine or outvote each other. Peter, for instance, used to throw drumsticks at me when we were onstage. If he could have, he would have rigged the stage with land mines. He had a sort of exclusionary zone in front of the drum riser, and if I drifted into it during a show, he pelted me with sticks—instead of dealing with whatever frustration he had in his life. Or with the resentment he felt toward me for being younger and not having gone through what he had gone through to get where he was. Or with the fact that the songs were mine, or that I was doing the talking. Whatever it was. Passive aggression is just misplaced anger. Maybe if he had dealt with it, he wouldn’t have needed to act like that.
Of course, in the band, we all had that to an extent. There were times when I was very clearly annoyed at Gene, and rather than address it, I did things that alienated him, alienated me. My anger may have been directed at the things he did—giving undue credit to himself, getting more interviews, or getting more photos—but the way I dealt with it was to be a dick.
We all would do better by addressing the real crux of whatever issue we have. In various relationships earlier in my life, whether personal or professional, I often didn’t or couldn’t address the crux of a problem. I don’t mean to suggest that any issue is one-sided. In hindsight, I see more than I did in those moments. It always takes two. Nobody is guiltless.
In the context of marriage, one aspect in particular is a microcosm of how I go about things today: interfaith marriage. Erin is Catholic; I’m Jewish. It was critical that we talk that out ahead of time instead of being faced with the issue later in our relationship. Because the biggest impact of not hashing it out wouldn’t have been on us; it would have been on our children.
In interfaith marriages, from what I’ve been told, the most common issue is that kids assume that they don’t belong in either religion. In other words, unless it’s agreed upon and discussed ahead of time—what the course of action will be and how the children will be raised and how each parent will or won’t participate—it sets children up not to know what to do. So are you going to bring up your child as a Buddhist? Great! Are you going to bring up your child in a Protestant sect? Fantastic! Jewish? Terrific! But if that’s not the case, then what exactly are you going to do?
In my case, because of my upbringing, I had inherited the idea—based on what I had seen in my parents and relatives—that my children had to be raised Jewish and only Jewish. But over the years I found that what I owe myself and my children is perhaps different from what I was told I owed myself and my children, or what my family or relatives expected. So in my case, even if it sounds odd, we tell our children they’re 100 percent Jewish and 100 percent Catholic.
Nobody wants to be a fraction.
But my children understand the diversity within the family. We celebrate Christmas and Easter, and I go to church to celebrate some important Catholic holidays. Not because I’m Catholic but because my wife is. It’s clear to my children that I’m Jewish, and quite honestly I grew up in a household where the idea of going into a church was suffocating. But by embracing my wife’s heritage and background, I embrace my children. There’s room for autonomy while embracing your partner’s background.
Going to church is another concrete way to demonstrate empathy to my kids. I tell my children that the only religion to steer away from—and that I want no part of—is one that presents itself as better than another. Or as right. I try to make sure my children know that religion is based on faith, not fact; faith is powerful, but nobody should dismiss another person’s faith because they think their own is somehow more rooted in factual reality.
I feel an obligation to Jews throughout history and the people I grew up around who had concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms; I have a responsibility to teach my children about the Holocaust and about the plight of Jews. What they decide to follow in terms of a theology will be up to them. But being kind, accepting, loving, and charitable has to take precedence.
Of course, for kids it’s perfectly normal to equate their favorite holidays with the ones when they get gifts. And if we were going to make a quick synopsis of all Jewish holidays, we would just say, “They tried to kill us, they didn’t, let’s eat.” Gifts aren’t the focus. But of course my kids also love Hanukkah, and I try to make them aware that it’s not a poor man’s Christmas. Every year before we light the candles I have them tell me the story of Hanukkah and what it means, and the stories of Antiochus and Judas Maccabeus and the oil that lasted for eight days instead of only one. I want them to have a sense of these stories and also the idea that there were and are people who want to stop religious freedom, and that’s never okay. Sarah and Emily like to wear kippahs, so why would I say no? This is a celebration of inclusion, and Erin is with us and we all sing together and light the candles and play with the dreidels. When Evan is away from home, he lights candles on his own—so it resonates with him and has stuck.
I’m well aware that we don’t have Rabbi Man or any kind of cool iconic figure like Santa, so in terms of competing, we’re in a deficit there. Hanukkah is quaint next to Christmas. Between Erin’s parents and brothers and sisters, the number of presents my kids get at Christmas is enough to open a store. And that’s part of their celebration, something that Erin brings to our kids’ childhood and experience. But we don’t divvy up the gifts. They’re two different holidays and two different experiences, and part of two different religions. So they’re not in competition, because that would turn it all into something unpleasant, uncomfortable, and stressful. Competition by nature is not relaxing. Having two holidays from two different religions competing against each other is contrary to the way celebration is supposed to be. But if you’re strictly talking gifts, Christmas wins! Hands down. And I’m okay with that.
We have to figure out what really matters to us individually and what we’re okay with, and that entirely changes life. Experiences are so much more fun when we’re not threatened by something or turning it into something it doesn’t need to be.
So, yes, you can have both.
Regardless of whether it may seem contradictory, my children were baptized. I would like all my children to have a bar or bat mitzvah too. Could I ever have imagined my children being baptized with holy water? No, but I have to say those were amazing, beautiful, rich moments. Baptism is part of who they are, part of who the woman I’m spending my life with is, and part of who I am now. Erin and I decided that neither one of us should bring up our children without acknowledging our own heritage—it’s important they experience both. Ultimately they will make up their own minds, and honestly, whatever they choose is fine with me because they will be well-rounded, loving children and adults who will contribute to society in many ways.
Being at Evan’s bar mitzvah was joyous; so is having an Easter egg hunt or going to Christmas Mass with the family. Again, that’s who we are. We are all of those things.
Before we go to bed every night we say prayers. Some nights the kids pray to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and some nights they don’t. But no matter what they pray, they acknowledge God, and they have the sense that nobody can know what is right or wrong; we can only acknowledge and celebrate our lives.
If religion teaches kindness and charity and understanding and acceptance, then it’s good.
For religion to survive, it must change and reflect the times; religions should be living, breathing things. Knowing right from wrong, treating people the way we ourselves want to be treated, doing good because that’s what God wants—those are timeless ideas. I know Catholics who don’t adhere perfectly to the dictates of their faith—they practice birth control, for instance—and I believe that for a religion to work it has to be realistic and applicable to our lives. Now some might say the opposite—that one’s life has to conform to religion. But I don’t agree. For instance, some sects of Judaism say that children are Jewish only if the mother is Jewish. Well, I say bullshit. I’m Jewish, and if I’m Jewish, then my child is Jewish. Whether or not everyone agrees with that is irrelevant. When you embrace who you are with pride and without excuse, you dignify who you are.
The way Erin and I deal with religion is just one key to the success of our relationship: if something bothers or annoys one of us, we want it out in the open. Otherwise, things snowball, and at some point we don’t even remember how the avalanche started. The way to keep that from happening is to address it before anything accumulates. If something bothers you, let the other person know how you feel. That way, maybe you don’t need the root canal, because the rot never sets in. It’s preventive dentistry.
People go to therapy because decay has set in. Maybe in a lot of instances in relationships we can avoid that decay by brushing after every meal, by flossing—by addressing things before they give way to rot.
Of course, sometimes we may come up against situations where the other person doesn’t want to do that. Then we have to make a decision. Because we can’t change other people. There’s no point in spending time thinking, “If only they would do this” or “Why are they doing that?” At some point it boils down to, “Why am I allowing this? Why am I going along with this? Why am I here?”
That’s what we all have to come to terms with. Why are we here? Is it beneficial to be here? What are we getting out of it? When somebody won’t acknowledge or address something, then the rest is up to us. The way something affects us has more to do with ourselves than with the other person. The way somebody’s behavior affects us is all about us. We are the ones who decide how it affects us and what we do. Either we find a way to make a relationship work for us, or we leave. But we don’t try to change the other person. We can only change how we take in and respond to their behavior.
Listen, I’m not Gandhi, but I bear no animosity toward people who have wronged me or misled me or been dishonest with me. They’re just gone. They’re no longer a part of my life. It’s part of the imperfection of life and how we deal with it.
When we’ve been hurt, we’re often motivated by vengeance, by getting back at somebody. But the thing is, when we’re happy, we don’t need to make anyone else miserable. We don’t want to replicate what somebody did to us. We realize at some point when we’re happy that creating misery never creates happiness, especially through revenge. Never. Revenge is ugly. It only puts us in an ugly place doing something ugly.