Finding Refuge in Marriage: Turning a Painful Past into Lifetime Love
Redefining Refuge
Refuge means different things depending on context. It can refer to shelter or protection from danger or distress, but it can also refer to a feeling of being seen and cherished, of belonging. Refuge may be found in places, in community, in relationships, in whatever nourishes the human spirit.
I say sometimes that I am the daughter of refugees, though neither of my parents would have characterized themselves as such. My mother—who immigrated to the United States after the Soviet Union’s subjugation of her native Latvia during the Second World War—would have emphasized that she was a displaced person rather than a refugee. My father, American-born and bred, would have dismissed that description as nonsense.
Yet it is one way in which I think of them, especially when I move beyond the literal to the figurative meanings of refuge.
I believe that my parents each sought in the other sanctuary from a painful past. But something happened in their pairing that diminished them both.
I wish I could say that my parents, when together, offered me some positive lessons about intimate relationships, but I can’t. It is only when I consider them as individuals separate from each other that I find qualities I would like to emulate. I admired their intelligence, generosity, and bravery. They each ventured forth into the world without any meaningful familial support, undaunted by the challenges they would face.
Marriage as a Lesson in Compromise
In his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung wrote that he felt that he was under the influence of things and questions left unresolved by his forebears. It seemed to him as if there were an impersonal karma within a family that is passed on from parents to children. He felt as though he had to complete, or continue, what previous generations had left unfinished. Without realizing it, I have searched for refuge in response to what my parents were unable to attain. Their longing became part of my parental legacy.
My husband, Tom, and I met as graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. When we first started talking about marriage, instead of considering what Tom and I might create together, I focused on what I didn’t want. I did not want to replicate my parents’ marriage. In truth, I understood little of the nature of marriage.
Shortly before Tom and I became engaged, I visited my mother in Texas. I asked her if she thought I should marry Tom. She told me that while she might tell me whom not to marry, she would never tell me whom I should marry. She went on to say that if I were hesitant to get married, and if that hesitancy resulted from a fear of compromise, I was making a mistake.
“Marriage will teach you about compromise like nothing else can, and it’s an important lesson to learn,” she said. I didn’t think much about her comment then; I still thought of compromise as something I would accept if I couldn’t win.
Creating Shelter in a Lifelong Union
The linguistic roots of the word “compromise” come from the Latin “compromittere,“ which means to promise mutually. Marriage is, at its heart, a mutual promise to create something of value together. In Tom’s and my case, that commitment involves finding and creating shelter in each other.
I have been married to Tom for more than four decades, and yet the story of our marriage is still unfolding, but I am sure of some things. I belong with Tom and within our union. I am, or at least have the potential of becoming, the best version of myself with him. That, too, a sense of hopefulness and possibility, is a kind of refuge.