Analyzing The Clintons: What Bill And Hillary Teach Us About Relationships

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's anger over a mistranslated question about her husband's view has become another one of those Clinton stories that enthralls us voyeurs -- whether as zealous demonizers or avid defenders -- of one of the paradigmatic power couples of our age. Beyond the vicarious thrills that come with analyzing the Clintons and their never-ending mix of juicy gossip, this story reminds us all that in every genuine and loving relationship there are times when one person feels overshadowed...when one person feels the other is taking up too much oxygen or taking up too much space. This can happen at a dining room table when our mate does all the talking at dinner and we can't get a word in edgewise as well as with celebrity power couples in the public eye, like the Clintons, whose dinner unfolds in front of the entire world. Hillary Clinton's irritation about her husband's reach happens between people in any serious relationship as there is no relationship in which there is always a perfectly equal distribution of power. One of the ways we develop greater intimacy is by working through the periods in our relationship when we need to rebalance who we are with each other and with regard to the world. This tension around giving each other space and the consequent need to recalibrate is exacerbated when both people in a couple are high powered and ambitious in the same area -- as in the case of the Clintons in the public and political arena. This is further exacerbated when, as it is for many men and women, women have for some period of their life put on hold their professional ambitions whether to raise children or to support their husbands career. It is a perfect storm if the two people are both always under a glass bowl and so it is with the Clintons.

For any couple to deal with this sort of issue requires honest communication and the higher-powered the couple -- the more ego , determination, single-mindedness, and capacity -- the greater than average communication skills necessary. Actually in this last period it seems the Clintons have done extremely well which is why Hillary's spontaneous outburst of anger drew such attention. The President seems to have given her space and stayed out of the limelight -- surely stayed out more than many of us would have expected. But this last week we were all reminded and Hillary most of all that Bill Clinton will for the foreseeable future be one of the most powerful, charismatic and influential people on the planet. Not surprisingly, after the Former President's headline making success in North Korea, Hillary was on edge and showed a bit uncharacteristically some public anger about what will never be a fully resolved issue. What we all got was a glimpse of what is and will be an ongoing struggle in the lives and relationship of these two powerful people and which is on a lesser level an ongoing struggle in our own relationships. There come points in every marriage where a couple needs to ask tough questions like:

Are we committed to help each other realize our potential?
Are we committed to help each other experience and exercise the full dimensions of the power and talents we have to contribute to the world?
Do we celebrate each other's successes?
What do we do when we feel overshadowed and crowded out by our spouse or resentful or envious of our spouse's success ?

Ethical rule number one is that the more power someone has in a relationship the more incumbent upon them it is to make room for the other: To do what Jewish wisdom calls tzimtzum -- self contraction. Having power and empowering are twin requirements in any healthy marriage and getting the right balance is always a dynamic and moving target -- all the more so if you are one half of a high-powered couple with a marriage constantly under scrutiny.

One of the seeming truths about the Clintons' relationship, of which both Bill and Hillary are surely aware and which will always create a certain amount of anxiousness or what I call sacred messiness if they use it to help each other grow and develop their relationship, is that no matter how hard Hillary works and no matter how smart and successful she is Bill Clinton was once the President of the United States -- an office Hillary Clinton wanted but could not attain -- and is one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. So even though, right now, Hillary actually has more power and is more important as she is the Secretary of State and reports only to the President of the United States she will at times reflexively feel surges of insecurity about her importance and her husband's overreaching. She will, as she has done quite well, need to continue to learn how to recognize those feelings for what they are and not let them make her bitter or resentful or keep her from recognizing how successful and powerful she indeed is. By the same token Bill Clinton will inevitably overreach but if he does love his wife and does want her not only to succeed but to feel successful he will have to continue to be ever aware that his very presence on the international stage always has the potential of crowding out his wife and therefore he will need -- again if he genuinely loves his wife -- to regularly step back and contract to give his wife the space she needs to be all she can be. We have no idea what the former president was feeling the weeks before he went to North Korea after not being on the front page of a newspaper in a while and not having the TV news following his every movement. But when he is called upon to be front stage to do what perhaps only he can do given his role and his abilities both he and his wife will need to communicate knowing the buttons that will inevitably be pushed. In doing so they have the potential to heal each other's Achilles' heel -- Hillary will come to realize that her worth, power, success, is indeed not relative to her husband's, and Bill will come to realize that genuine love and the deepest power is often expressed by making space for others to flourish.

In truth, we never know what is really going on in another couple's relationship. After all, aren't we often surprised when a couple we know so well tells us they are having problems or are getting divorced? So we have no idea what is really going on in the Clintons' relationship and it may well be because their relationship seems so complicated we are fascinated as to how they hold things together -- whether because we envy them or because we can't believe it. Perhaps, we would be better using our interest in this story as a mirror in which to see our own relationships. Where do we not give our spouse, lover, partner the space to shine? Where do we take up too much oxygen? Where do we feel envy or resentment of our spouse's success? How can we better support each other to succeed even when that success may trump our own? I know, at least for myself, that it is allot easier to be tantalized by and take sides in the Hillary-Bill relationship than it is to look at my own relationship and acknowledge where I need to redefine my role.

Precisely at those difficult moments when we don't understand each other and our emotions spill over is when we need to remember that it isn't that we have to understand someone in order to love them but that we have to love them in order to understand them...and loving someone is always messy.

Follow Rabbi Irwin Kula on Twitter: www.twitter.com/irwinkula

Comments

[Naoko Fukuda]

I understand quite well that this blog was written by a MALE. In Japanese, there once was the saying, "A married couple is one sould and one body" which obviously implies that this was also invented by a MALE.

Perhaps Ms. Rodham-Clinton is victim of her own success: by putting her husband first to become President and thereby becoming an instant celebrity. It was something as her destiny for her generation to make such choices, but some people just cannot stop seeing her now as the "Mrs." closely associated to the former President, rather than see her as an individual.

Don't get me wrong, I have high respect for her and was impressed by her autobiography, but it may take some more time that there will actually be a female President.

[KateMc]

There is another way to look at her response; one that men like the Rabbi might not get. How about the fact that on this trip to Africa she had been slammed with image after image, interview after interview that reflected "man's" inhumanity to women. Maybe she'd had it up to here, not with Bill's success and media coverage, but with men assuming that women were second class and third class!

[schmi304]

AMEN!!!

[WIKANDER]

Very well spoken!

[partyofone]

An interesting analysis. But it avoids the huge question about what Hillary's enablement of Bill's serial adultery tells us about power, relationships, ethics and marriage.

[Merckx]

Do tell. I'm sure you have all the answers!

[placpje]

Guess that's because most people aren't obsessed with BC's $ex life.

Is it jealousy, .....

..... or attraction?

[antaeus]

Still harping on that old string?

Real people have sex. It's not complicated.

[Shzron1946]

Women do not enable men's infidelity. I took a good look at my husbands, told him I didn't like it and divorced him when he would not stop. Perhaps Hilary sees something else--like some other woman being the idiot who puts up with sexual practices she has no interest in sharing with the husband. There are women who do that, you know. There are marriages where husbands and wives agree that there will always be some other person or persons, male or female, who take care of their partners needs because that is the simplest solution. Americans are very naive about accepting this publicly. Many Europeans seem to see it as a fact of life.

[Verity1025]

I think it's very arrogant for anyone to think they know what goes on in the Clinton's relationship. Whatever it is, it works for them. Why do people feel the need to pick everything apart and/or judge? I give Hillary Clinton credit for standing up for herself and, in doing so, for women everywhere. No matter what you think of her politics, we owe her for that.

[partyofone]

The Clintonschose to make their marriage a topic of public discussion when they went on 60 Minutes in 1992 and misrepresented it, to save Bill Clinton's candidacy. They injected their melodrama into partisan politics. Hillary has talked very personally about it in town hall meetings and television interviews around the world, including Turkey and South Korea.

[placpje]

EVERY politician is asked about their relationship. That doesn't mean that every detail of their relationship is fair game.

You're just bitter about the fact that he was elected.

BTW - He also left office with the highest approval ratings of any POTUS ..... EVER.

Try not to choke on that.

[nycboy]

Great post Rabbi.

I have to second what some of the other posters said.

I believe she didn't like that question due to that fact that her entire trip was based on her speaking to women all over Congo about mass rapes and womens rights.

I am not sure if this is something she said because she felt she was being overshadowed by Bill, I think she would have had the same reaction if it were Biden in the question instead of Bill.

Of course it does not make for that juicy a story though...the media loves to pin the Clintons against eachother...so I know this story is much ado about nothing.

You did make some good points though. Kudos.

[Goodtimes09]

Cooperation. Reciprocation. Encouragement. That's what this man did and it worked out just great at the City Council Meeting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuNnnW-7Ws

[marirebel]

I think this analysis is way off and part of a hateful meme Huffington Post seeks to place in the public sphere--that meme is that Hillary is overshadowed by Bill. When the two American journalists were freed by North Korea, Huffington Post ran a headline exclaiming that Hillary was once again overshadowed by Bill. Huffington couldn't let go of the hate and rejoice in the Clintons' joint accomplishment. Al Gore stated that Hillary and the State Department worked tirelessly for the release of the journalists. Hillary suggested her husband when North Korea made clear that the visit of a high ranking dignitary was required. This is an example of people working together, not an example of one person being overshadowed by the other. But, Huffington Post would like us to think that Hillary is second rate, not enough, Bill is better. Misogyny reigns supreme at this site (how many articles do we have to see on Hillary's pantsuits and hair ???) In this latest attempt by Huffington Post to pass off their hateful meme, Huffington fails to contextualize Clinton's comment. Clinton was traveling in the Congo, a place where raping young female children, as well as older women, is common. Women there (and here-- as the high incidence of domestic violence evinces) lack sufficient agency to protect themselves. Clinton was angry at the journalist's question because it was a continuation of a pattern of discounting/shunning women's voices (her own) in favor of men's voices (her husband's).

[KIVPossum]

Hillary will always be overshadowed by Bill and she knows it.

[Jase84]

I'm going to agree with this. HuffPo has taken a strange approach to Hillary and I don't like it.

[Uzo Nwoye]

well said. I couldn't agree more

[PoliticalRockChick]

I so agree.

[Cakey4814]

Great post..

[jennylynn]

They teach our girls that it is okay to stay with a man who cheats on you,,,,just make sure you are going to be first lady.

[Bulbul]

Gee...no depth at all.....

[PeterVanKan]

Intelligent nonsense. If people are aware of what they trueley are, which has nothing to do with power or reach or public eyes or politics, they wonlt have a problem. If they are not, they have a problem that wonlt be solved by clever psychologists and the like. The whole article onlky seems to make sense. Truely, it does so only if we accept the world and ourselves as fake.

[susankhbelen]

I have gotten use to saying
"Well, it works for them!"
regarding so many marriages of my family and friends.
They probably say the same for us!
And you know what, it DOES work for us....
We promised when we got married to 'Never intetentionally hurt each other in word and deed.'
(among other things like love, loyalty!)

The Clinton's have something that does indeed 'work for them.'

[MaryKayL]

Rabbi Kula,
I found this a very wise article. I particularly cherish your last paragraph, which I am adding to my collection of quotations, and in fact, passing along to my brother who is a Catholic priest. I am most assuredly going to be able to use your quotation in my work with parents as a social worker. Thank you for sharing your so perfectly chosen and assembled words and wisdom.

[GenealogyKR]

Hillary stands up for herself very well. I admire her!

[twilight druid]

The g0p do not believe in the sanctity of marriage.

[SangZe]

Stay single!

[Pansey]

Amen again.

[gifu]

Stay single.

[Pansey]

Amen