As I was writing, “This Old Spouse” this article appeared in the New York Times. While I saw the phrase as a metaphor for the constant tinkering required to keep a new spouse thriving and an old spouse…well…keeping him running (or her) like a ‘63 Chevy may be a worthy goal, these couples were literally struggling through household renovations that were tearing them apart. Renovations (think ‘change’) in the house where you dwell and/or the house of love do tend to bring out the worst in each other.
From The New York Times
By PENELOPE GREEN
Published: January 11, 2007
SANDI SLONE and Bruce Ehrmann have been a love story for 25 years. She is a painter, he is a newspaper and television reporter turned real estate broker. They met in Harvard Square one afternoon — she had a show nearby, he was meeting a friend — and they have been together ever since. Where she is dainty and precise, he is expansive, voluble and quick to self-criticism. Their rapport is terrific, an affectionate, Nick-and-Nora-style back-and-forth, honed and polished to a glittering sheen.
Lately, however, there has been this one point of contention, a bit of a roadblock. Since 1987, Ms. Slone and Mr. Ehrmann have been living in a rough-and-tumble artist’s loft on the top floor of an old warehouse in TriBeCa. They purchased the roof rights when they bought the place all those years ago. And for years they struggled: there weren’t even proper floors or a ceiling when they first moved in. They added walls and a nice bathroom as their bank accounts allowed, living in what Ms. Slone called a “provisional” but perfectly happy style.
Then Mr. Ehrmann became a real estate broker — he’s now a vice president at Stribling & Associates, working mostly in the marketing of luxury developments — and their fortunes, along with their neighborhood, began to change. By last year, they suddenly had the means to expand, to literally move up in their world, and build another room on the roof. But whose room?
Mr. Ehrmann, after years of living in his wife’s studio, was desperate for his own private, paint-free aerie. And Ms. Slone, after years of living on top of her own work, craved a separate work space, with its own entrance so collectors might come for a showing, and, as she explained, “I wouldn’t have to ask Bruce to move his shoes out of the front hall, and so when we had guests over for dinner and I’m in the middle of work, which is very intense and very private, they can’t just walk out of the bathroom and see it all.”
Uh-oh, there it is. The impasse. The boulder in the path. The point at which a couple pursuing a renovation or decorating project disagree, and each partner veers onto his or her own road, the high road, driving quickly and emphatically far, far away from each other.
A few days ago, Mr. Ehrmann and Ms. Slone were on the phone together, each on a different extension, explaining the situation. “The conversation ranges from the genuine need to discuss the impasse in a nonthreatening way, to come to a resolution,” Mr. Ehrmann said, “to statements like, ‘I can’t stay in this relationship, I need to go rent an apartment, I’m going to TriBeCa Tower.’ ” And Ms. Slone broke in. “Honey,” she said, “that’s not a bad idea.”
Like moving, childbirth and death, renovation is one of the biggies: a huge stressor in a relationship. How a couple handles it tends to mirror or even amplify what’s going on between them, particularly the problems, blowing up slights to the size of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.
Third parties are frequently entangled. Contractors, architects and decorators become skilled at listening and conflict resolution.
“I don’t want to be a marriage counselor, I wasn’t trained to be one,” said Nancy Corzine, a high-end decorator whose work can be seen from Los Angeles to Manhattan. “But the personalities come out, they can’t help it.”
“And of course it’s about power,” she continued, “who has the ultimate ownership of the home. My job is to move it along. I won’t let there be an impasse, because I don’t get paid until it’s done. If you’re smart, you learn that she says one thing and means another, and you know who you have to please. The checkbook is the answer.”
Rob Rogers, a principal at Rogers Marvel Architects in New York, remembers with a wince a time during the last decade when the firm’s work was primarily residential — and marital.
“There was the couple our office nicknamed the Bickersons,” he said, “and the time we were so worn out we replaced the sign on our door with RMA Marriage Counselors in preparation for an evening session.” The great lesson he learned, Mr. Rogers said, was to try to get clients who had lived together for some period of time, or at least to make sure a new couple had hashed out some pretty basic issues.
