Keeping Romance Alive

IT WAS A BLUSTERY, cold day in Washington. It was also our day off, and a good time to indulge in one of our favorite treats — an afternoon at the theater. As it turned out, A Matter of Gravity was not my choice for the Play of the Year, but Katherine Hepburn made it well worth the price of admission! She was magnificent! As we walked away from the theater in the early evening, I turned on my mind's "instant replay" where I could hear Miss Hepburn deliver certain key lines and relive the delight of her inimitable delivery.

    One line in particular kept coming back again and again. Miss Hepburn was portraying an elderly widow playing hostess to her grandson and his friends, and at one point she was queried by one of the guests about the quality of her marriage. She replied, with great dignity, "It was a triumph! But it took some doing."

    As she spoke the words, a couple who are close friends and were sitting a few rows ahead of us wheeled around to make sure we had grasped that line. And Louie, sitting next to me, gave me an elbow in the ribs.

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Apparently it was a line with special meaning for all of us, not just for me. For marriage is a triumph — at least it can be... but, as Miss Hepburn eloquently reminded us, "It takes some doing."

    Perhaps no aspect of marriage takes more "doing" than that of keeping romance alive. Romance takes time, energy, planning, and creativity — yes, it's work! But, like seeing Katherine Hepburn in a play, the delightful results make it well worth the price you pay.

    Recently I read a best-selling book in which the writer suggested that wives ought to greet their husbands at the door at the end of the day dressed in a baby-doll nightie and high heels. Well, I could hardly wait! When Louie came home that night I — no, I didn't. But what I did do was ask him how he'd feel if I greeted him that way one night, and he replied, "I'd like the implication, but not the getup."

    Then he chuckled. "That sure would be out of character for us! But I could accept a variety of expressions that say, 'I want time with you.' The thing that turns me on is not what you're wearing — it's you as a person... knowing that you desire me.. that we desire each other."

    Then, after a pause, he added, "Come to think of it, the getup might be just the ticket for some people."

    And he's right! If a nightie and high heels work for the woman who wrote that book — and apparently it does — that's great! But it wouldn't be natural for us. There are rules for keeping romance alive that will

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work in the same way for everyone. But one thing that romance does require is a periodic planned sharing we might call "quality time"... time for two people to be together in a very private way, doing whatever pleases them.

    When our children were small, we played a little game for two called "Make a Tunnel." All we did was to cup our hands around our eyes and bring our heads together until our hands touched, forming a tunnel between us. Then we simply looked into one another's eyes, and with everything around us temporarily blocked out of mind and view, we "let the rest of the world go by." The game didn't take much time — just long enough to look deep and feel something warm and satisfying inside. Today I asked Andie, our nineteen year-old-daughter, what "making a tunnel" meant to her way back then, and she said, "It made me feel secure, warm, close, and very special." I thought to myself, that's what romance in a marriage makes you feel — secure, special, and close. So perhaps "quality time"—looking deep into the eyes of the one you love and "making a tunnel" in whatever way pleases you both — is essential to keeping romance alive.

    Recently I was talking to a friend whose husband died a year ago, just before his fiftieth birthday. They had known a good marriage, and she missed him and their life together terribly. As we talked, my friend's eyes filled with tears. I don't think I'll ever forget what she said: "He saw me in a way no one else ever had. And

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now that the one who thought I was most special, most beautiful, most unique, is gone, I just don't feel I'm as much those things anymore." She was not complaining — she told me she was rich in memories now because theirs had been a great love, a romance to the end. Obviously, they had taken time to look deep, to see in each other what no one else could see, and to feel warm and secure in their love. However a couple achieves it, this is "quality time."

    We know several couples who seem to be especially successful at keeping the glow glowing. Each couple has their own interpretation of quality time, depending on their personalities and life-style.

    Dee and Bill Brehm, for instance, from whom we borrowed the term "quality time," are extremely busy people. Bill is presently the Assistant Secretary of Defense, for legislative affairs. Dee is a fine French cook who gives cooking lessons in her home; she also is active in the covenant group ministry of the church and gives parties (seven-course dinners!) for half the world as it passes through Washington. But in spite of their full schedules, Dee and Bill give Christ, their marriage, and their family highest priority. Each Wednesday night, barring a national crisis, they have their "quality time." Dee prepares one of their favorite French meals, sets a beautiful, candlelit table in their bedroom, and when Bill comes home they close the door. Wednesday night is theirs — no children, no phone calls (except emergencies), and no interruptions. What they do after dinner

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— well, who knows? Whatever it is, it nurtures them and their relationship — and it shows.

    Another couple we love and admire greatly are Mary Jane and John Dellenback. Somehow I always think of them as a team — the way they pull together, honoring one another's interests, has given their marriage a deep sense of oneness and romance.

    "A big part of the excitement in our relationship comes from our support of each other," Mary Jane says. "John has encouraged me to become part of his professional life. Traveling with him, now, as director of the Peace Corps, and watching the empathetic way he deals with people — the impressive way he dispatches problems — gives me a tremendous surge of pride. He says I've helped him become more skilled in dealing with people, and he has helped me become a more organized, careful thinker. He is the one who urged me to return to school and finish my degree. And he's proud of my accomplishment! My field of interest isn't his, but he listens and learns something of what is exciting me intellectually at the time."

    Then Mary Jane remembered something and laughed. "Yes — and he was quick to point out, when we discussed this subject, that we aren't all that intellectual in our interest in each other! We just plain, physically, like to be together. We enjoy traveling together, playing tennis together, visiting museums together. We have a lot of fun."

    Gene and Jeanine Arnold are another couple alive to

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one another! Married since she was eighteen and he was nineteen, they have just celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, and they still become radiant in each other's presence.

    "It's not that we never fuss," Jeanine says. "We fuss fast and get over it fast, and the experience cleanses us of petty grievances. Then we're free to give ourselves wholeheartedly again."

    These two have many gifts in their marriage, but there is a special one that Louie and I call the gift of "anointing."

    In the New Testament there is a touching scene in which Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus' feet with expensive ointment. Her gesture was more than a generous expression — it was downright extravagant — and the disciples reacted as many of us would to such an act. They reprimanded her, saying, "Why, that nard could have been sold for two hundred denarii and given to the poor."

    But, as Mary threw practicality to the winds in a bold expression of affection, Jesus affirmed her! His response set an example, and through the centuries it became a custom to "anoint" a loved one with a costly gift. It is something many of us cannot do often... yet when it is done sincerely, rather than as a sad effort to buy someone's love, it can be a real boon to romance. Our friends, Gene and Jeanine, have learned to anoint one another with exactly that result.

    Early in their marriage, Gene was a young Marine

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and was sent to Korea. (Jeanine was pregnant when he left, and their baby, Jennifer, was four months old by the time he returned.) On Gene's small sergeant's salary things were tight financially ... yet every month, on the date of their marriage, flowers arrived at their home back in the States. The bouquets became a tender link of two hearts whose marriage was also new and tender. Of course, they couldn't afford it, but the "anointing" bonded their relationship with thoughtful bursts of affection that continue to this day.

    It is difficult for me to describe where Louie and I are in respect to keeping our romance alive. In fact, this chapter has been hard to write because I've become painfully, yet gratefully, aware how good God has been to us in our relationship, and how little we sometimes give him to work with. True, we keep our Thursday nights for each other, but sometimes we are just too tried to do anything but go to bed... a respite for us both, certainly, but not always "quality time." There are pressures and crises in the ministry — even on Thursdays — and we sometimes lose our one night a week altogether. I remember one period in our last church when emergencies came in unrelenting waves. It was an incredible time of tragic teenage deaths, community trauma, with the church involved — as it should be — at the very core. After many weeks of little rest and no time alone together, the strain took a toll on our relationship. When the calm finally came, as it always eventually does, I called Louie's secretary and asked

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her to put me down on his schedule for lunch the first day he had a free noon hour. She wrote "Business Lunch" in his appointment book and then added the address of one of our favorite restaurants.

   I still remember the look of surprise on Louie's face as he walked into the restaurant that day and found me waiting at a table for two. It was a very special time — Louie was tender, I shed a few tears, and, fortunately, the restaurant was not very crowded. It was a time of getting back in step, of agreeing to resist the pressures that could keep us apart.

    Perhaps, though, it is right for us to yield to these pressures and needs of others occasionally — even if it means missing those special times of recreation together. Yet when we do, it is also right — and also necessary — to set up another "business lunch," or a dinner or a weekend out of town so that we can be tender and weepy, or whatever we must be in order to feel that we are walking hand in hand again. I guess what I'm saying is, we are committed to the need for "quality time" together, but we don't seem to be able to adhere to it rigidly. We get it — somehow — someway— because we need it — and even more significant, we want it.

    Neither are we anointers, like Gene and Jeanine. Our "gifts" have been affirming notes pinned on pillows or left on desks... flowers, not from the florist, but picked by Louie along the road as he jogs in the morning. When it comes to costly gifts, we are both very practical. We always seem to be saving for some purpose or

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project ... So, when birthdays or anniversaries come along, our gift is usually a reminder to one another that we are "saving up." (With three of our children in college, I don't need to tell you what we are "saving up" for!)

    What works for one couple will not automatically work for another. Like so many parts of marriage, romance must be custom-made. And yet, in spite of the things we haven't done, God has blessed us with a love that is alive... with a romance that keeps us feeling special to each other.

    When I asked Louie what was to him the most romantic thing we did together, without hesitation he said, "Backpacking in the high country." Now, bear in mind, we are at our grubbiest at that time.. no perfume, candlelight, or soft music... but there is a feeling of partnership, a working together, a sharing of both the hardships and the exquisite beauty of the experience, and a stillness that is most romantic to both of us.

    One of our special friends in California hates any kind of camping, and I can just hear her saying, "Well, my dear, to each his own." How true!

    Romance is not made of shivers and tingles — in spite of what the movies may tell us! Romance is not even what we do — or don't do. Doing the right things may enhance romance, but basically romance is an attitude. It is a man and woman being alive to one another — not taking one another for granted. It is an atmosphere — a look that speaks more eloquently than words, a

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squeeze of the hand as you pass each other in a crowded room, a pat on the head or the shoulder for no particular reason. Romance is an element of fascination and delight that culminates in a deep desire to experience all of life with the one we love.

    Romance helps make marriage the triumph it can be — a triumph that is both a gift from God, and one that "takes some doing."

Chapter Eight  ||  Table of Contents