Nina felt “lucky.” Peter was “one in a hundred men.” But behind her sense of luck lurked a cautionary tale, just as Carmen Dela — corte was chastened by the memory of her mother’s struggle as a single mother, just as Nancy Holt was haunted by her mothers depression, so Nina was chilled by tales of divorce among contemporary women friends. Several female colleagues at work had seen their marriages wrecked on the shoals of the second shift and had been thrown down the social class ladder, where some had become stuck, where others had struggled part way back up at the expense, Nina felt, of their children. Recently, two close friends exactly Ninas age, both in full-time jobs, both with children the age of Alexandra and Diane, were suddenly abandoned by their husbands—or so it seemed to Nina and Peter. One of these women stayed with them a week, bringing her devastating story home. Nina responded to her friend’s plight with empathy, horror, and a certain fascination. As she told me: “My friend is gorgeous. But she said she wasn’t feeling good about herself, so she went out and got a face lift. She’s younger than me! Her husband went out and got a younger woman, even more gorgeous.” Outside the safety of their love nest lay this cool marketplace of romantic partners, the men choosing, the women being chosen for youth, looks, the absence of children. It was frightening.
Just as Nina and Peter were speculating about what had gone so terribly wrong in their friend’s marriage, Peter’s father dropped a bomb closer to home. After forty years of marriage, he announced that he was divorcing Peter’s mother and taking up with a blond Caucasian twenty years younger than he was. What was going on? Had the marriage been that unhappy all along? In the wake of this shock, Peter and Nina turned to reaffirming conversations about how much fun their courtship had been, how their love had deepened.
But Nina vaguely sensed a vital link between these divorces in the “outside world” and what she was asking of Peter at home. The cold winds outside made the hearth seem warm. As she reflected in a serious tone:
These divorces have had an interesting effect on our relationship because, of course, you start examining something that’s close to home. I do think women—I should say men as well, but actually I mean women—start nagging about little things like picking up clothes. I realize that little things can really build up. Peter’s father poured out to me things that go back for years. His wife would continually nag him about little things, like not hanging up his suit at night. I harp at Peter about helping the kids. He’ll let me ask him before he does it, and I don’t like to have to ask him to help. If I’m continually harping, maybe I should make some adjustments.
Given the threat of what could happen if their marriage were to founder, Nina decided not to push Peter on the issue of housework. This was not a simple result of the flow of events. It was a small, considered move, part of a half-conscious strategy not to push, to be the woman with the flying hair instead.
The question now became how Peter could be made to feel less put upon. She could ask him more nicely, and less often. They could get more outside help. She could cut back her work hours. She could keep on doing the second shift.
The “as if” world of divorcees that Peter and Nina would enter for real if they did divorce also subliminally lowered Nina’s credits at home. She was beautiful, well-off, and unusually blessed in chances to remarry. But it was apparently still more scary for a woman like her to be “out there” than it was for a man like him. Life was harder, pickings were slimmer. Divorce was a cautionary tale for them both, but more for her.
Warned by these divorces, Nina made up for outearning Peter and inadvertently injuring his male pride by working the extra month a year herself. After this, Peter continued his gender strategy at home of being unusually involved in a certain way. He par-. ticipated in home life in the spirit of one who leans curiously over a neighbor s fence but avoids getting too involved in the neighbor s affairs. He entered “Ninas sphere,” but from the safe vantage point of the active witness, the helpful advisor.