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Authors: Gretchen Rubin
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ribavirin, didn’t work for Jamie, despite an unpleasant year of flulike symptoms, pills, and weekly shots. Now we just have to hope that Jamie manages to hang on to his liver until researchers find new treatments. In addition to cirrhosis leading to liver failure, itself not an attractive prospect, hepatitis C also makes liver cancer far more likely. Thank goodness for liver transplants—though a transplanted liver is no picnic and, scarily, not always possible to get. (Like the old joke about the restaurant: “The food is terrible!” “Yes, and the portions are so small.”)
So we were all very interested in the Times piece’s description of possible new treatments. My father-in-law, Bob, found the article encouraging, but every time he made a comment, I countered it.
“According to the article, the research is very promising,” he said.
“But both of Jamie’s liver doctors told us that it’s going to be at least five years, if not more, for a drug to be approved,” I answered.
“The article suggests that they’re making great strides,” he answered mildly. Bob never becomes argumentative.
“But they’re still a very long way from getting it on the market.” I often become argumentative.
“This field of research is enormously active.”
“But the time horizon is very long.”
Etc., etc., etc.
It’s not often that I find myself telling Bob that he’s being overly optimistic. He emphasizes the importance of rational, probabilistic decision making, and he practices this discipline himself, with yellow notepads with “pros” and “cons” columns, a habit of gathering multiple viewpoints, a detached “Markets go up, markets go down” outlook. In this situation, however, he chose to take an optimistic view of the evidence. Why argue with him? I didn’t agree with his view, but I’m no doctor, what did I know?
My new aspirations for my behavior were high but not unreasonable. I knew that my combativeness and pedantry in this conversation came not from petty irritation but from a desire to protect myself against false hopes. Bob was taking the positive route, and I would have felt better if I’d let the issue go without arguing. I’m sure I made Bob, and certainly Jamie, feel worse by saying discouraging things, and being quarrelsome just made me feel bad. Fight right—not just with your husband but with everyone.
On a less lofty note, I also learned not to eat half a pound of M&M’s on an empty stomach.
NO DUMPING.
For my research on learning how to “Fight right,” I had acquired an extensive library of books on marriage and relationships.
“Anyone who looks at our shelves is going to think that our marriage is in trouble,” Jamie observed.
“Why’s that?” I asked, startled.
“Look what you’ve got here. The Seven Principles for Making MarriageWork . Love Is Never Enough. Babyproofing Your Marriage. Uncoupling . One Man, Hurt. I’d be worried myself if I didn’t know what you were working on.”
“But this material is great,” I said. “There’s so much fascinating research.”
“Sure, but people don’t bother to read these books unless they have issues. ”
Maybe Jamie was right, but I was happy that I’d had a reason to study the latest findings about marriage and relationships. I’d learned a lot. For example, there’s an intriguing difference in how men and women approach intimacy. Although men and women agree that sharing activities and self-disclosure are important, women’s idea of an intimate moment is a face-to-face conversation, while men feel close when they work or play sitting alongside someone.
So when Jamie asked, “Do you want to watch The Shield ?” I understood that in his eyes, watching TV together counted as true quality time, not we’re-just-sitting-in-a-room-watching-TV-not-talking-to-each-other time.
“Great idea!” I answered. And, as it turned out, while lying in bed watching a TV show about a rogue cop in L.A. didn’t sound
So we were all very interested in the Times piece’s description of possible new treatments. My father-in-law, Bob, found the article encouraging, but every time he made a comment, I countered it.
“According to the article, the research is very promising,” he said.
“But both of Jamie’s liver doctors told us that it’s going to be at least five years, if not more, for a drug to be approved,” I answered.
“The article suggests that they’re making great strides,” he answered mildly. Bob never becomes argumentative.
“But they’re still a very long way from getting it on the market.” I often become argumentative.
“This field of research is enormously active.”
“But the time horizon is very long.”
Etc., etc., etc.
It’s not often that I find myself telling Bob that he’s being overly optimistic. He emphasizes the importance of rational, probabilistic decision making, and he practices this discipline himself, with yellow notepads with “pros” and “cons” columns, a habit of gathering multiple viewpoints, a detached “Markets go up, markets go down” outlook. In this situation, however, he chose to take an optimistic view of the evidence. Why argue with him? I didn’t agree with his view, but I’m no doctor, what did I know?
My new aspirations for my behavior were high but not unreasonable. I knew that my combativeness and pedantry in this conversation came not from petty irritation but from a desire to protect myself against false hopes. Bob was taking the positive route, and I would have felt better if I’d let the issue go without arguing. I’m sure I made Bob, and certainly Jamie, feel worse by saying discouraging things, and being quarrelsome just made me feel bad. Fight right—not just with your husband but with everyone.
On a less lofty note, I also learned not to eat half a pound of M&M’s on an empty stomach.
NO DUMPING.
For my research on learning how to “Fight right,” I had acquired an extensive library of books on marriage and relationships.
“Anyone who looks at our shelves is going to think that our marriage is in trouble,” Jamie observed.
“Why’s that?” I asked, startled.
“Look what you’ve got here. The Seven Principles for Making MarriageWork . Love Is Never Enough. Babyproofing Your Marriage. Uncoupling . One Man, Hurt. I’d be worried myself if I didn’t know what you were working on.”
“But this material is great,” I said. “There’s so much fascinating research.”
“Sure, but people don’t bother to read these books unless they have issues. ”
Maybe Jamie was right, but I was happy that I’d had a reason to study the latest findings about marriage and relationships. I’d learned a lot. For example, there’s an intriguing difference in how men and women approach intimacy. Although men and women agree that sharing activities and self-disclosure are important, women’s idea of an intimate moment is a face-to-face conversation, while men feel close when they work or play sitting alongside someone.
So when Jamie asked, “Do you want to watch The Shield ?” I understood that in his eyes, watching TV together counted as true quality time, not we’re-just-sitting-in-a-room-watching-TV-not-talking-to-each-other time.
“Great idea!” I answered. And, as it turned out, while lying in bed watching a TV show about a rogue cop in L.A. didn’t sound
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