美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Listen To The Marriage,' A Case For Spending Time In The Counselor's Office

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

John Jay Osborn is a screenwriter and novelist who has mined his own life for material. In 1970, he based the book "The Paper Chase" on his time in law school. His new novel is based on an experience he and his wife had together.

JOHN JAY OSBORN: More than 30 years ago, we went to the marriage counselor¹. And it was a life-changing experience. It made our life together so much better. And we went to her for four years. And at the end of four years, she said, you know, guys; I'm sorry, but this is it, you know? This isn't designed to go on for your whole marriage. You know, now you're going to have to go out on your own. And we were like, oh, God, no, you know?

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

OSBORN: But she said, no, this is it - got to go.

SHAPIRO: His new novel is called "Listen To The Marriage." The reader only meets three people - a couple and their marriage counselor. In the author's note, John Jay Osborn writes that he hopes the book may change some marriages for the better.

OSBORN: I'd been wanting to write this novel for quite a long time, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I just couldn't get it right. And then suddenly I had two realizations². And the first one was, it all takes place in the marriage counselor's office. That's what the story is. And the second was it's from the marriage counselor's point of view. And that was a big step for me for two reasons. You know, I've never been a marriage counselor. And number two, the marriage counselor had to be a woman.

SHAPIRO: Why?

OSBORN: I just - that - I've asked myself that. I mean, part of it was that my marriage counselor was a woman, and I believe most marriage counselors³ are women. And it just felt right. It just felt like it had to be that way.

SHAPIRO: How similar is the marriage counselor in this book to the one that you used?

OSBORN: So the marriage counselor in the book is different, but the themes of the marriage counselor, the techniques of the marriage counselor are very much the same.

SHAPIRO: Explain. What do you mean? What are those themes and techniques?

OSBORN: So for example, the marriage counselor says there are no deals, you know? You can't make any deals with each other. We're not going to do exchanges of promises. We're not going to say, OK, I'll do this, and you'll do that, and therefore our marriage is all going to work out. There's none of that. You know, to go to a marriage counselor who says that to you is really an interesting experience.

And then the second thing is if you want something from your partner, you've got to make them want to give it to you. So in the simplest situation, if you want your partner to love you, then you've got to become the kind of person that your partner is going to want to love, you know? Those are the kinds of insights⁵ - simple but I think critically important insights that my real marriage counselor and my fictional⁶ marriage counselor share.

SHAPIRO: Would you mind reading a section of the book for me?

OSBORN: No, sure.

SHAPIRO: Page 38.

OSBORN: (Reading) Usually Sandy didn't pay much attention to the world beyond her small office - the illicit⁷ meeting in New York where Gretchen was going for the weekend, what Bill's wife knew. Everything that happened outside the office - she didn't care. To Sandy, the important story was what happened inside her office. It was what she had to focus on. It was the story. It was what was really happening. Of course all the time, it was tempting⁸ to get caught up in the outside story - the affairs, the sex, the betrayals, the soap opera. But the real work was here inside her office.

SHAPIRO: That almost feels like a thesis⁹ statement for the book.

OSBORN: It is actually. And I put that in because I didn't quite trust the reader to get it, you know? Those two paragraphs are a marker for the reader saying, look, guys; this is where the real story is.

SHAPIRO: I know that's true of the novel. Is that really true in life? It's hard to imagine that betrayals and affairs cannot actually be what's important to whether a marriage lives or dies.

OSBORN: I have to say that in the long run, they don't matter. The stuff that happens outside the office doesn't matter. And I can tell you that by analogy¹⁰. So what happens in really good marriage counseling¹¹, the marriage counseling illustrated¹² in this book, is that by the end of the process, when you really begin to get it, when you can actually understand for the first time in your life what your partner is really saying to you, you feel like a new person. It's as if you've shed everything that happened before, right? I mean, so if you had an affair before, it's as if it happened to a different person. It doesn't count anymore. You're new. Does that make any sense?

SHAPIRO: It does, and it makes it sound like the marriage counseling is about much more than marriage. It's about real transformation¹³ of each individual.

OSBORN: It has to be. It absolutely has to be. And that's why it takes time - because it's - it is not some kind of blinding insight⁴ that you're going to have. Oh, God, this happened to me when I was 14; now I understand it; I'll be different. It's not about that at all. It's about learning lessons that you should have learned when you were growing up maybe by watching your parents. But your parents didn't have it together. They weren't - didn't have a great marriage. It's about learning these lessons of how you can relate to the other person, how you can understand what they're thinking.

And you have to practice. You have to practice it again and again. And that's what the couple does in this book. There are certain little things that the marriage counselor leads them through. For example, throughout the book, she'll stop, and she'll say, I want you to look at each other, and tell me what you see. And as you read the book, you'll see that they see more as they learn more until they really can see the other person in a deep and meaningful way.

SHAPIRO: I said that we only meet three characters in this book, which is not...

OSBORN: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: ...Exactly true because the way you write this book...

OSBORN: That's right.

SHAPIRO: ...There really is sort of a fourth character...

OSBORN: There is.

SHAPIRO: ...Which is the marriage itself.

OSBORN: It's the marriage itself. And the marriage counselor actually sees the marriage as a distinct¹⁴ and real character. She's actually listening to the marriage as the marriage changes in the office. And she's trying to get the couple to be able to do that as well, to see their marriage as something that they built over time that's very important and that's alive in a way that's different from each of them.

SHAPIRO: Marriage rates have been going down for decades. According to the Pew Research Center, today, just about half of adults are married down from about 75 percent in the '60s. Your book is clearly pro-marriage. Why do you think this institution still matters?

OSBORN: Wow, I mean, you're absolutely right. My book is pro-marriage. But it's not pro-marriage in any kind of transnational sense that we have to have marriage. It's pro-an-important-relationship because it makes your life so much better, you know? I mean, there's a reason that everybody wants to have a relationship. It's, like, the two of you individually are one thing. But if you can get it together, you literally¹⁵ become more than the two of you if you can create a important, fulfilling relationship together.

SHAPIRO: Do you think every marriage could benefit from a good marriage counselor, or is it really just sort of for people in crisis¹⁶, in dysfunction?

OSBORN: OK, I think that every marriage could benefit from a good marriage counselor, you know? You may not have to go for four years, but I think that you can really learn a lot. I don't think you should settle for a marriage that just, you know, is OK. I mean, it's the critical thing in your life. You want a marriage that's wonderful. You want a marriage that you can feel and talk to and that gives it back to you.

SHAPIRO: Well, John Jay Osborn, thank you so much for talking with us about your book.

OSBORN: Well, thank you so much. This was really fun.

SHAPIRO: His novel is called "Listen To The Marriage."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MARRIAGE")

BOMBADIL: (Singing) What would you say of marriage after the 200th time I told the same joke and then I broke your favorite watch with my heel?