A Walk in Vondelpark

The following excerpt is from my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together.

Martha and I strolled along in Vondelpark on a beautiful late summer day, as we were apt to do just before dinnertime when we were living in Amsterdam in 2005. The air that day was clear, the clouds lay suspended against the bluish-grey sky and the leaves in the trees danced in the breeze. People rode by on their bicycles in all directions: some very leisurely and some at a fast clip. Parents walked with their children in baby carriages and at their side, as did pet owners with their dogs. Skateboarders and joggers flew by and groups of teenagers milled about with no clear purpose other than hanging out together in the park. Jugglers and musicians held the attention of onlookers, families picnicked together on the spacious green lawn and lovers on blankets rimmed the glimmering pond at the center of the park. We walked together, taking in the smorgasbord of sights, sounds and sensations in Vondelpark, which was located near where we lived in the southeastern part of the city. We loved this routine. 

I felt deeply connected with Martha on this walk. Although we were in a new and foreign city, away from family and friends in the United States, I felt peaceful, grounded and at home. It had not always been like that, particularly in recent years. After living for twenty-five years in Hartford, Connecticut, Martha and I had uprooted our family at the mid-point of our careers to move to Amsterdam, where Martha took an expatriate position at a well-known Dutch bank, and I took a hiatus from a career as a psychologist and marriage and family therapist. I became a “house husband,” taking care of the home and our growing children, all of whom experienced difficult adjustments as a result of our move. There were many times Martha and I felt disconnected and dislocated and wondered, “What were we thinking?”

As we walked along, I felt an urge to have a conversation with Martha to explore what had allowed us to be so bold and adventurous to have made the choice to move to Amsterdam. I asked her if she’d have a conversation with me about our relationship at this stage of our lives. She was more than glad to engage with me.

I asked her, “When we are in touch with our relationship and with what we have together, what is present in our lives?” Without hesitation, she said to me, “A sense that anything is possible.” Her response resonated with me. I could see that when we are together and aware of our commitment to the quality of marriage, we have a feeling that we can be or do anything. Life is wonderful. Life is grand. I reflected that when we first met, when we had each of our three children, when we supported each other in getting our advanced degrees and when we moved to The Netherlands, we had that sense that, “anything is possible.”

Now I was even more curious. I asked her again, “When we are in touch with our relationship, what do we experience together?” This time she paused in thought as we continued down the path. In that moment, we took in the surroundings and all of the activity around us. She said, “Being excited about the life we are creating.” I flashed back on the early days of our marriage, when we were first dating and how excited we were about being with each other. I could hear the narrative over our life’s journey that had allowed us to continuously return to being enthusiastic about our relationship. The story line had not always been happy or joyous, far from it, but we had worked together over the years to consistently experience that familiar place we call “us,” where we have been able to be enthusiastic about our lives and passionate about what we have shared together.

We kept exploring this notion of “us,” that space only the two of us have known, have nurtured and have honored for so long. I then said, “There is partnership.” When I sat on the plane next to Martha as we flew to Amsterdam for the first time three years previously, I thought, “I am sitting next to my partner in life. I wouldn’t do this with anyone else.” When Martha and I are most deeply in touch with our relationship, we know that anything is possible, we are passionate about our life together and we are full partners. We can tackle anything.

Reference

Miser, A. (2014) The partnership marriage: Creating the life you love…together. Charleston, South Carolina: Create Space Publishing.

Posted in Partnership Marriage