Devorah Tarrow, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:
Many wives have worried: “Why does everything between us turn into an argument? We can’t seem to agree about anything!” Most disagreement in marriage is narrow, has meanness in it, and makes people ashamed. Meanwhile, is there such a thing as a good disagreement—a necessary disagreement that has good will in it? Yes! At the Understanding Marriage! class, on Sat., April 13th, this urgent, surprising topic will be addressed: “Disagreement in Marriage: When Is It Useful, Kind, Even Beautiful?” The class takes place from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, and is open to all women.
Taught by Barbara Allen, Anne Fielding, and Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman of the consultation trio There Are Wives, the class is based on this explanation by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: “The purpose of marriage is to like the world. The reason happiness in marriage is such a rare item is that people have tried to love in a way that would mean less of a like for the world—in fact, a contempt for it.”
Women will be learning–and this is crucial: it’s not disagreement per se that saps marital happiness; but rather, the purpose of the disagreement is what makes it either useful or not, good or not. There will be lively, down-to-earth discussion of these sentences from Mr. Siegel’s comprehending lecture Mind and Disagreement:
Marriage has been one of the most fruitful sources of acute and sometimes chronic disagreement. Disagreements range all the way from who should have the first egg at the breakfast table to how should this subtle philosophic point be interpreted. If it exists, you can disagree about it….Deeply, we are in disagreement with any person who doesn’t want to know us as we are….Anytime anybody disagrees with anything for a good reason, he or she is fighting for all humanity.
Those attending will be seeing that a disagreement for the purpose of being honestly just to a spouse and to reality always strengthens a couple’s care for the world, and is in behalf of real love!
The fee for the class is $10. For more information, call 212.777.4490.