What matters more, your marriage or your career?

Yesterday’s very sensible New York Times opinion piece notwithstanding, when it comes to politics, columnist David Brooks and I don’t agree on much. ?

What redeems Brooks is he doesn’t confine himself to politics; for example, rather than writing about a nation at war with itself, or the dysfunction of the Republican Party, or the thuggish, unfettered venality of Donald Trump, Brooks focuses on other, largely overlooked, underdiscussed topics, for ?example: ?career vs. marriage; pick one.?

When Brooks says all of us should,

“obsess less about your career and to think a lot more about marriage,” claiming that, “if you have a great career and a crappy marriage you will be unhappy, but if you have a great marriage and a crappy career you will be happy”

My initial reaction is, who even thinks to raise an issue like this?? Not me – it never even occurred to me to ask the question about which is more important – and not anyone I know.

I happen to know a thing or two about marriage, having been to the altar three times, making me something of an amateur expert.

Revisiting my first marital foray, in my grad-student years, I now recognize it for what it was: ?a rebound reaction to having my heart broken by someone older and vastly better equipped to deal with a breakup, prompting me to retreat to the relative safety of someone new.?

How did it go?? The marriage lasted for maybe a year-and-a-half, until I fled the house, shoeless, never to return.

Damaged and distressed by that first, misguided decision, I remained single until my 40s, only to marry again, reliving its rapid demise on page nine of The Art of Client Service :

“Get a martini or two in me, ask my why my second marriage ended in failure, and I will say three words: ‘Lack of trust.’” ?

Eighteen months seemed to be my marital shelf-life, given that was the elapsed time before my divorce.? I had spent more than 20 years on my own, only to make exactly the same mistake the second time around.

Would I quit while I was behind?? If reason prevailed, I might have said yes.? Thankfully the heart won out; I met Roberta on a blind date, introduced by a mutual friend, the Mambo Queen, also known to our dance-conversant friends as Debbie Elkins .?

This December we celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary.? For 25 years of that we have been partnered not just in life but in business, jointly running our consulting, coaching, and workshop business, Solomon Strategic.

Has it all been harmony and bliss?? I would be lying if I said yes, but this is beside the point.? When Brooks says,

“There are mountains of evidence to show that intimate relationships, not career, are at the core of life, and that those intimate relationships will have a downstream effect on everything else you do,”

he is speaking truth to readers.? Count me among those who agree with him.