How to Rekindle the Passion
Inspiring words from Hugh Downs—married 63 years
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed noted television newsman Hugh Downs, former host of the Today show, announcer of The Tonight Show with Jack Paar and anchor of the television news program 20/20.
Together with his wife, Ruth, he coauthored Pure Gold: A Lifetime of Love and Marriage (Arizona State University, available in libraries), and he has spoken on marriage at the university.
On February 20, 1944, 22-year-old radio announcer Hugh Downs married 21-year-old Ruth Shaheen, a colleague at NBC in Chicago. The young couple had known each other for less than a year and had little understanding of the magnitude of the commitment they were making. Yet 63 years later, Hugh Downs, one of the premier television newsmen of our time, and his wife, Ruth, remain happily married.
How do some marriages grow stronger over time, while other couples soon forget what they ever saw in each other? Hugh Downs has thought long and hard about this and, with Ruth, has written a book on marriage. We asked Hugh to share his insights…
What’s the biggest challenge facing a marriage?
Most marriages fail because of a breakdown in communication. The messages we send to our partners are not always the same as the messages they receive. If we ask our spouse to call us when he/she works late, the message we’re trying to send might be, “I love you and get worried when you’re late,” but the message our spouse receives might be, “My partner is trying to keep me on a short leash.”
These misunderstandings can feed upon one another until both partners are angry and upset, even though no offense was intended. It helps to think of marriage as an ongoing struggle to learn to speak our partner’s language. Speaking this foreign language will never be easy, but it does become more comfortable as the years pass.
As we learn our spouse’s language, do we need to communicate less?
Certain messages need to be sent again and again, even if they have been said many times before. Husbands sometimes think, “I don’t need to tell my wife I love her. She knows I love her. I’ve told her thousands of times.” But telling your partner “I love you” (or “You’re beautiful” or “I’m lucky to have you”) doesn’t just repeat what’s been said before—it also tells your spouse that you’re thinking of her right now and want to make her feel good.
I was reminded of the necessity of seemingly unnecessary compliments recently when my wife praised my efforts as a caregiver following her hospitalization. I didn’t need this praise—I truly enjoyed taking care of my wife, and I already knew that she had appreciated my help—but it sure made me feel good to hear her say it.
We all change as we grow older. How can couples avoid growing apart as the decades pass?
It’s perfectly natural for married people to grow and change. It’s also natural for married people to develop passions and interests that are of no interest to their partners. This actually can be beneficial to a marriage. Separate interests introduce new conversations, friends and ideas.
Having separate interests also lets each partner maintain an independent identity. Because my wife has her own talents and interests, she has never had to worry that she would be known only as the wife of Hugh Downs.
For a similar reason, Barbara Walters and I made a good team on 20/20—we complemented each other rather than stepping on each other’s toes. Barbara sought out people whose visibility or newsworthiness was social or political—or who were at the top of the entertainment world. My areas were medicine, science, adventure and music.
Can’t separate interests pull a couple apart?
The trouble comes if spouses’ diverging interests interfere with the closeness of their relationship. This often occurs when spouses can’t separate their strong feelings on a topic from their feelings for each other or when outside interests start to dominate their time.
Forty years ago, Ruth started a needle¬ work company. It became successful, and soon she had employees and a schedule as busy as my own. We were seeing less and less of each other, which is never good for a relationship. When people who love each other are separated for brief and infrequent periods, they long for each other and their love grows during their time apart. But when couples are separated frequently, they eventually either become bitter about the separation or learn to live without their partners. Either way, the marriage suffers.
Ruth and I realized that one of us had to give up a career for the sake of the marriage. Ruth volunteered and sold her business because there was more money in what I was doing. Ruth still pursues needlework, but as a hobby, not a career. My wife made an incredible sacrifice for the good of our relationship, but other couples don’t have to do that. Two-career couples can be very happy as long as the marriage is a high priority for both.
How can people who have been married a long time keep the passion alive?
Remember the passion you felt for your spouse in the past, and you will rekindle those feelings in the present. When a happy or passionate moment from our lives together comes to my mind, I share it with Ruth, and she does the same with me. Soon those wonderful old feelings are flooding back, and we’re no longer looking at an old person—we’re looking at the young person we married 63 years ago.
Older people sometimes feel foolish for living in the past. That’s nonsense. Older people have every right to savor their memories. Be sentimental. Reminisce about the past. Share your memories with the person you love. This is an important factor in making it possible to keep romantic feelings alive.
How else can we keep the passion alive?
If you fall into a rut where you don’t feel love, passion or happiness with your spouse, fake it. Acting like we’re happy or in love can trick our brains into actually feeling that way.
Do you and Ruth feel there’s anything more to learn?
There’s still lots to learn, even though we’ve been married for decades. In fact, I’d say the learning curve grows steeper the deeper we get into the relationship. Each passing year brings a clearer understanding of what our partners want from us and what we want from them—if we remain open to this information.
Passing time also provides the opportunity to take a more mature perspective. My wife and I were overly emotional early in our marriage, too ready to take offense at perceived slights. Only after years together did we discover that our relationship became happier the more we ignored those slights. Most of them were just misunderstandings anyway.
There’s a saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Don’t believe it. Not only can you teach an old dog new tricks, that old dog has developed the experience to decide the best way to fetch the stick—and to decide whether it wants to chase the stick at all.
So it is true what they say—marriage requires hard work?
Yes, but if you love your spouse, that work doesn’t feel like work. When I interviewed Kirk Douglas for the premiere of his movie The Vikings in 1958, he complained in jest that he’d had to film take after take of a scene in which his character made love to Janet Leigh. As I said at the time, it might have been hard work, but it was not unpleasant work. That’s marriage.
(Article originally published August 1, 2007)
Reprinted with the permission of:
Boardroom Inc. and Bottom Line Publications, Inc.
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