I was stunned when I read that Al and Tipper Gore were separating after 40 years of marriage. But then five minutes later, their decision did not seem stunning at all. To paraphrase the late Ann Landers, "Some good marriages do not make it to the finish line."
There are understandable reasons why the Gores, with dignity and decency -- a consistent theme in their individual and married lives -- are changing their lives. The glib commentators who put them down, insinuating that the Clintons have succeeded where they have failed, don't know what they are talking about. Following a great deal of thought and discussion by a couple, a mutual decision to end a marriage is not a failure. It is instead an act of courage, a determination not to live a lie.
No four individuals or two couples could be more different in emotional and ethical makeup than the Clintons and the Gores. The Clintons are satisfied and content in what can best be described as a professional marriage, a shared devotion to their power, their legacy and their daughter. And they are both comfortable spending most of their time on separate public stages. This is where they find their energy.
This is surely not the case with Tipper Gore, who watched her mother suffer from grave depression, cared for her until her death, and has been candid about her own struggles with depression. Children like Tipper learn to focus on their inner world, and the inner world of their loved ones, often seeing what others do not and finding energy in solitary activity, family closeness, intimacy and quiet, artistic reflection and pursuits.
Tipper's marriage forced her onto a public stage, and those who have met her seem to ever talk of her kindness. Interestingly, she has turned to photography, reaching enormous accomplishment. This is her way of being there, seeing what many cannot, and also, camera in hand and blocking face, manage to maintain some semblance of safe, private distance.
The Gores have publicly stated that the horrific accident of their son when young, which put him in a coma from which he recovered, led to marital counseling. They explained that the counseling led to Al being more open with his feelings, a boon to any marriage.
Openness and intimate sharing is usually far easier for women than for men. But for Al Gore, raised by two extremely dominating, formidable, and formal parents who insisted on charting his professional course for him, the challenges must have been daunting. Despite how deeply he loved his wife and she him, sharing openly could never have flowed effortlessly. And it is an easy flow with a beloved that is the surest way to keep depression out of the world of one prone to it.
Although Al and Tipper Gore, like most couples in long marriages, navigated the waters of intimacy with great mutual effort, their ethical compatibility was effortless. They agreed with each other about right and wrong, and ever shared this deep ethical bond. Tipper was the first public personality to bravely confront the music business, demanding that impressionable adolescents and teens be protected from sadistic, rage filled lyrics. They are a couple who believe in hard and persistent work, and honorably pursuing their goals.
Consider the toll on Al Gore as vice president, when his most ardent rival became the first lady, whose husband had consistently misled him about Monica Lewinsky. Consider the toll on this couple and their marriage when Al Gore won the popular vote for President and watched his election stolen, with the support of the highest court of the land.
It has been written that Al Gore's depression following this "defeat" caused Tipper to implore him to dust off his old work on protecting the environment and move forward with it once again. The fruits of his labor were public respect, recognition, not to mention a Nobel Prize and an Emmy. Al Gore was finally on the public stage he was raised for, but for the first time on his own terms.
Just as I believe that had Robert Kennedy lived, we would have avoided the horrifying divides of Vietnam, I believe that had Al Gore been elected President, so much of today's terror and division could have been avoided. Plus the Gore marriage would have endured, and remained close.
But there have been too many pulls, exacerbating their emotional differences, on this extraordinary couple. Finally fulfilled in the work of his choosing, Al is not home, as he once had been. Nor, of course, are their adult son and daughters. Together Tipper and Al Gore have endured a world over run with values and ethics not their own. The compilation of these realities would be particularly hard on Tipper, who above all has sought harmony, understanding and intimacy her whole life.
The waves, smiles, and kisses of the Gores has been a presence in our lives for decades. Now these same waves mark an ending. Al and Tipper Gore have lost the closeness in marriage that both worked hard to achieve and maintain; and they have the courage, consistent with their ever present individual dignity and mutual respect, to say so.
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Linda R. Monk, J.D.: Tipper's Turn: A New Life for the Good Wife
I would like to share part of an e-mail I received (with the permission of the writer), as it relates to the comments related to this blog, and others......Thank you all so much for this meaningful feedback conversation.
SaraKay
"The real reason I feel so badly about Al & Tipper divorcing is that I see myself rightly or wrongly as like Al - is or was. Like him, I am not "open" and will do anything to avoid confrontation. I at least have learned to understand my fears and why I avoid sharing my inner self, but still have not been able to share myself, which is why I can identify with what I believe the Gores must have faced. I fear that my fiance (who l love very much) will not be able to live this way forever, and that she will eventually break our engagement. We now live in different cities due to work commitments, but our time together is far more meaningful for me than I think it is for her.
Life is complex and marriage and relationships as well.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I so agree with you: The Gores have had a genuinely caring relationship, have been unselfishly generous toward the public, and have been dedicated to everything I hold dear. We who have been so warmed by their hard work and devotion can only wish them and their loved ones well, acknowledge their honesty and decency, and, as you say so well, understand that life, marriage and all important relationships are exceedingly complex.......
SaraKay
I wish them success and happiness in whatever direction life takes each of them.
I think some of our perceptions may be generational. As a young person, I was very involved with working for civil rights, and I saw the Supreme Court at the time as a body, rich with wisdom, and knowledge of the law, seeing the Constitution as a living document, one that offered hope and promise in an unjust world. In this way, I think this Court saved our country from a revolution.
I believe the Gores looked at the Court in this way also, and, from what you write, that you do too, N1512. To see how the Court conducted itself in this lost election for the Gores (not to mention many subsequent decisions) had to have turned the world as they viewed it upside down and inside out. So many of their subsequent decisions, dominated by a very short sighted majority with far too little experience living in the real, unprotected world, have also been beyond unsettling.........
Thank you so much for taking the time to write......
I so agree with you. Thank you for writing.
SaraKay
Thank you,
SaraKay
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So you're saying that they lost their marriage because he lost the presidency?
That's a helluva indictment.
What I am saying is that the ordeal of deception from the highest resources of our Government (in what I believe was a stolen Presidency) for an ethical couple like the Gores, who work hard, and have lived their lives (and raised their children) with the standards of very ethical rules of conduct was beyond what most people could ever endure. It was awful for a great many of us, and very bad for our country (I believe), but we were not the ones on the very front line, and personally shattered.
This ordeal led to Al Gore's finding a different path, his own. He is consumed by his work, and I see Tipper as always longing for a different and private life, where she can just be herself......
I love this couple, and I wish them each so very well. I met Tipper Gore once, and thanked her for all she was doing to help those who suffer from depression....Her response was to take my hand and thank me for what I am doing.....Unbelievable!!
But beyond what most people could endure? Give me a break.
Most of us are not children of privilege - and many of us (myself included) endure much worse than that. Just go visit any meeting of Compassionate Friends, a support group for parents who have lost their children.
I certainly am not judging either of them for their choice, and I wish them both well - but really, hagiography is neither called for nor appropriate. Al's ethics, like the ethics of most politicians, have sometimes been questionable. His two-faced response to Clinton's mess (support in public, disgust in private) gave GWB an opening to take the high moral ground during the 2000 election, which is what probably cost him his own home state of Tennessee, and thus the election, Supreme Court be damned.
What's clear is that they had spent a lifetime investing in their relationship, and then, for whatever reason, they stopped. It happens. Now, there's nothing left in the account for them to draw upon.
My guess is that either or both of them is experiencing the siren call of the libido - and finding no place in the other to get their libidinal desires met. Al, in particular, is travelling in very rarified circles, and no doubt many beautiful women are available to him.
That also happens.
These are people, not demi-gods.