…although not in the way you’d expect.
This week’s New York Times has a long article on open marriages, and the main couple that the article discusses are Daniel and Elizabeth. Here’s a summary of their story:
Daniel and Elizabeth were happily married in their 20s, but Elizabeth’s interest in sex soon diminished, leaving Daniel frustrated. They had two children and, to outside observers, probably appeared a successful couple. But Daniel remained exasperated that his sex drive was thwarted, and Elizabeth was not comfortable with the idea of an open marriage.
The story changes with this sentence:
And then, one day in August 2013, when she was 44 and Daniel was 47, Elizabeth learned she had Parkinson’s disease.
Elizabeth, who had always been athletic, went into hyper-drive with the exercising, and she joined a weekend hiking group. Daniel was not so interested in working out, and was tired on weekends after long hours at his Monday-Friday job. They remained married but frustrated and, apparently, either weren’t having sex or having it infrequently and not enjoying it.
Then the story takes another major turn in this paragraph:
One seismic shift in a marriage often drives another. In the fall of 2015, Elizabeth met a man at a Parkinson’s fund-raiser. Joseph had symptoms similar to Elizabeth’s and also felt he was in his prime.… He asked her to tea once, and then a second time. They understood something profound about each other but also barely knew each other, which allowed for a lightness between them, pure fun in the face of everything. They met once more, and that afternoon, in the parking lot, he kissed her beside his car, someone else’s mouth on hers for the first time in 24 years. It did not occur to her to resist. Hadn’t Daniel wanted an open marriage?
Elizabeth and Daniel attended lots of marriage counseling sessions. She continued to see Joseph. She introduced Joseph to Daniel. Daniel and Joseph got along with each other. Elizabeth, now comfortable with having an open marriage, helped Daniel prepare his profile for OKCupid, the online matchmaking site. Eventually Daniel met someone to have an affair with, too, and he felt great. They also told their children about their open relationship – and both children (ages 17 and 15) accepted it, albeit in different ways. Elizabeth and Daniel also resumed having sex with each other – and the sex was good.
The entire article is very long, and the focus is on open relationships, not PD. But I find it interesting that what saved Elizabeth and Daniel’s marriage – and what made their lives more fulfilling – was Elizabeth getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
The story’s final paragraph is full of hope and satisfaction:
Daniel and Elizabeth had turned their union into an elaborate puzzle, one they could only solve together, had to solve together, for the well-being of their family, even if doing so demanded more from each of them than their marriage ever had. Energy for generosity in a marriage can easily suffocate beneath the accumulation of grievances and disappointments, or even laziness of habit; now both Elizabeth and Daniel felt the weight of those histories somehow shifting, if not entirely lifting. They had experienced enough to know that they could not predict how much their lives might change in another year or two; but they felt more confident that they could weather what was coming their way. “The marriage is better than it was when it started,” Daniel said in March. “It is. It really is.” He recalled something his wife said to him a few days earlier that had moved him. “Maybe it doesn’t sound that amazing, but we were just lying in bed talking, and she said, ‘What can I do to make you happy?’ ”
Click here for the full article.
Illustration: “The Lovers” by Marc Chagall
