newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

For many I'm sure, Tipper and Al Gore seemed the perfect couple: high school sweethearts, 40 years of marriage, three lovely, accomplished daughters, a son who when a child recovered from a serious injury, grandchildren (one of whom I believe was born on or close to the Fourth of July) and a successful political life that took the family to live in the vice presidential mansion in Washington, D.C., and almost The White House.

Indeed, to use the phrase coined for New Jersey, "Tipper and Al: Perfect Together" would have been the right bumper sticker for couple. But then last week, the Gores announced that they had decided to end their long marriage. They caught the world by surprise, and although the bumper sticker might do well on Ebay, it no longer applies to them.

The world has been buzzing about what caused the breakup. I happened to be at a dinner party the night after the announcement, and much of the conversation focused on possible reasons. Some simply took the decision on face value, saying that 40 years is a long time to stay married to one person, and people grow and change. Others took a more cynical view attributable no doubt to some politicians' sorry records of infidelity. Another shoe will fall, they claim.

My memories of the Gores focus mostly on Tipper's vulnerabilities: I remember reading in a magazine article that she always put on a coat of bright red lipstick before Al came home to look alluring. She also told a reporter when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke that such an episode would never happen in her marriage, because the she and Al were too close for anyone to get between them.

Tipper seemed to struggle with her weight and also with finding something meaningful to do. She took up photography. She also took on a difficult public cause: trying to persuade the recording industry to tone down its raunchy lyrics about sex and violence aimed at teens. She succeeded in persuading the industry to create a ratings' system for parents, so they would know what their kids were buying. She took a lot of heat for it because of First Amendment issues. But given how sexualized our society is and the intensity of the messages beamed at kids at younger and younger ages, I think she performed a real service.

But my memories are meaningless in the long story of the Gores' marriage. I believe it
was Hillary Clinton who wisely once said: "the only two people who know what's going on in a marriage are the two people who are in it."

The Gores' breakup, however, perhaps illustrates a new trend in marriages in which people will have two or more serial monogamous marriages rather than one very long one. When the Gores married in 1970, very few foresaw the extended life spans people would experience. Al Gore, at 62, and Tipper Gore, at 61, are in late middle age and each can expect to live another 20 or 30 years. Is it realistic to think that they should live together for longer than 40 years?

The New York Times' "SundayStyles" section records more and more announcements of older couples remarrying for a second time after divorce or widowhood. A couple of weeks ago, a 90-year-old man and an 85-year-old woman announced their marriage with the same relish as those in their thirties on the same page.

I participated recently in a celebration of second marriage of a golfing friend of my husband. His wife had died after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for many years and a friend arranged a meeting for him with a merry widow in her late 70s. They fell in love and married within a year. They seemed to be having a marvelous time at the dinner in their honor: holding hands, cutting the cake, kissing each other, and planning all sorts of jaunts around the world. Sex and aging definitely do not seem to be an oxymoron these days.

My husband and I were part of the "till death do us part" generation of the late 1950s. Most of our good friends, as well as we, have spent over 50 some years together, and no one seems to be complaining. Almost all of the couples, however, have witnessed a divorce and remarriage among their own children, which most have accepted. The times and the length of marriages "are a changin'," to paraphrase Bob Dylan.

Many young people today jettison the "till death do us part" language in the marriage service. I think it's for the best. I went to a lovely wedding this past weekend at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Titusville, New Jersey. The bride and the groom, Lexi Gelperin and Andy Ryan, both in their late 20s, wrote their own vows. With their permission, I have copied them below, so you see the type of commitment members of the younger generation are making to one other as they marry. I don't think Lexi and Andy are necessarily locking themselves into any particular time span for their marriage.

Each spoke the words to the other, first Andy and then Lexi, holding each others' hands:

I choose you to be my partner.

I will listen to you carefully and be open to the many things I can learn from you.

I will work to bring us together when we feel furthest apart.

Your happiness is inseparable from my own.

I will encourage you to follow your passion as you encourage me to chase my own dreams.

I will strive to live deliberately so that we might make a difference in the world.

I will accept your strengths and faults as you accept mine, and keep patient as we learn from our mistakes.

I will remember to laugh and keep a playful spirit.

I will keep growing and changing, but I intend always to be someone whom you can be proud to call yours.

I ask you to share this world with me.

Be my partner and I will be yours.

Ironically, the Gores chose to announce the end of their long union in June, the month for weddings. But I think 40 years is a wonderful record, and it should be celebrated.

Similarly, Lexi and Andy should be proud of taking their first steps on the walkway of marriage, with its joys and struggles.

I wish the Gores all the best in the next phase of their lives as individuals and friends, as they insist they will remain, and I wish much happiness for Lexi and Andy, too.

Who wants to be perfect anyway?

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it