For a couple years before we separated I used to introduce Marilyn as “my first wife.” At cocktail parties and that sort of thing. I’d say it in such a level voice that most people got the little joke, especially if there was someone in the group who, knowing it was the only marriage for both of us, would break the ice and chuckle first. But Marilyn herself never laughed. She wouldn’t even smile, numbly, or shake her head from side to side, like when I would launch into one of those dumb jokes I used to tell over and over again until people finally laughed, not at the joke itself, but at how ridiculously committed to it I was.
Marilyn brought up the “first wife” comment in our very first session with Dr. Susan, citing it as an example of my “callous disregard” for her feelings. I know that was exactly the phrase she used because I secretly kept my mini-corder running during all those session – not for legal reasons, or even so I could go back later and argue about who had or hadn’t said what, but in the same way that I tape my phone calls to customers – because I don’t always get the full meaning of what people are saying in the rush of the moment.
When Dr. Susan looked to me for a reaction I sighed softly – you can actually hear the sigh on the tape, like a rustling of silk – and noted that this was typical of how Marilyn had behaved throughout the fourteen years of our marriage, how she almost never confronted me personally, and in the moment, with something that upset her. It was always later, and through an intermediary if possible.
There’s a pause, a creaking of Dr. Susan’s wooden desk chair, and then I soften my tone. “To be fair,” I add, “I guess she did say once or twice that she found the first wife comment ‘odd.’ But she only said it once or twice, and distantly, without any real bite. I mean,” – and I no doubt widened my eyes unnaturally here, to signal that this next part was a bit tongue in cheek – “contrast that with Tom O’Rourke’s wife, who goes ballistic if he introduces her as, ‘My wife, Ginny,’ instead of ‘Ginny, my wife.’”
The Ginny O’Rourke line almost always gets a chuckle, even from people who don’t know Ginny or Tom, but there is absolutely no reaction from Dr. Susan. Instead, after an uncomfortable pause, she asks me if – regardless of what Marilyn did or did not say, or the manner in which she did or did not say it – I was aware that the “first wife” remark bothered her.
If I’ve learned one thing in my years in sales it is that it never pays to duck a straight question. You’ll have to answer it sooner or later, and sooner is almost always better.
“Yes,” I say, “I could tell that it bothered her.”
“Then why did you continue doing it?” Dr. Susan asks, the chair creaking again as she leans toward me, her tiny eyes narrowing.
I look down and to the left, as if searching for an answer. Dr. Susan gives me about four seconds, and then creaks back and asks, softly, “Was it to provoke her?”
I resist the temptation to shoot her a look and fire back, “You mean, like you’re trying to provoke me now?” Instead I nod and say, in a sincere tone, “Yes, that was part of it.”
My honesty seems to catch Dr. Susan off guard because there’s a longish feeling pause before she asks, in a low, careful tone, “And what was the other part?”
I begin to reply, then stop, either because I don’t know what to say, or because I do, but I don’t want to say it. I chuckle at this unaccustomed loss of words, then bounce away.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, dismissively, but also grandiloquently, “just to be witty and/or charming, I suppose.”
“I see,” Dr. Susan says, in an icy tone, and doesn’t follow up, perhaps because she feels that the shallowness of my reply speaks for itself, and the conversation moves off to other topics. Looking back, I think that’s unfortunate, because if she’d pushed a bit harder, and if I had spoken to what the other part was, right there and then, in that first session ... it might have changed things.
~
Marilyn, my ex-wife, is a dull brunette who was accidentally born with bouncy blonde hair. I once quipped that if she was a blonde who’d been born with flat brown hair she would have dyed and curled it, but her intrinsic brunetteness blocked that course of action. Instead, except for a brief period in high school, long before I met her, she kept her hair short and straight. To deny it. As she denied so much.
Marilyn was tight with money as well, particularly when it came to herself. She’d wear a bathrobe to tatters and never declined a gift sweater, even if it was too green. She maintained that this was because she didn’t want to be rude to the gift giver, but it was really because she couldn't stand waste. Her frugality was a source of affectionate teasing in the early days of our marriage, but as my income approached a million a year it got a bit ridiculous.
A few years before our separation Marilyn read an article about how, when successful men remarry, the second wives blow all the money the frugal firsts saved. She must have mentioned that article fifty seven million times, her face pinched with bitterness. At one point in our counseling I quipped that it was partly because Marilyn had been so certain that I’d run off with someone that in the end I sort of had to, but Dr. Susan didn’t go for that line, either. She had me down as a salesman, and she made it clear, right from the start, that she was not buying.
I admit to the tag, but with the disclaimer that I’m not typical of the breed. All salesmen say that, of course, but I really am different. Unlike your typical broker, who advances sales through a fairly standard procedure of prospecting, qualifying, pitching, overcoming objections, and then closing ... I employ a highly intuitive style. I call prospects whenever the mood strikes me – sometimes just one day after calling them before, other times not for a year. I never hesitate to call an “unqualified” prospect, and I’ll bet that I spend 80% of my time calling the dinky customers who account for 20% of my commissions rather than the other way around, like the books say. I’ll raise an objection a prospect hasn't thought of yet, and I will sometimes talk them out of a deal I’ve just sold them on, if I have second thoughts. It's not that I'm an altruist, or that I view these as effective counter techniques. It’s just how I am. And the crazy thing is, it works. Last year I was the number two guy in the New York office – of all places – and number three nationwide.
I related this to Dr. Susan as a way of explaining why I never read any of the self-help books or articles about putting the magic back in your marriage that Marilyn was forever suggesting I might profit from. I didn’t read those books, I explained, for the same reason that I don’t read books like “Power Prospecting,” or “Don’t Sell Yourself Short.” Because, as I said to her, “following prescribed plans feels artificial. I follow my feelings instead.”
I remember that Dr. Susan smiled at that, but it was a tight smile, like her steely hair. She was probably thinking that I was about as far from a "follow your feelings" kind of guy as anyone she’d ever met, and that I was just telling her this to underline how successful I was, and therefore more likely to be right. She might have also taken my comment as a criticism of her own methods.
Noting the tension between Dr. Susan and me, Marilyn suggested that we look for a different therapist. If she’d pushed that idea I would have agreed, but she only mentioned it in passing, so I more or less just ignored it. I could deal with Dr. Susan’s antagonism. If anything, it gave me something to work with, the way I feel stronger when I get a push-back from a prospect.
~
When Marilyn and I separated, a lot of people said they weren't surprised, because we were so different. You could see it at cocktail parties. Marilyn didn’t drink at all, because her father had had an issue in that area, and she didn’t like how I got “glib” when drinking, so we generally split up. She’d drift off into a corner to speak with her women friends about “real” things, while I’d flit from one group to another like a honey bee, laughing and joking, never staying too long in one place, never going particularly deep, and not pretending that I was, either. “I should warn you,” I would often tell people, “that way down deep … I’m kind of shallow.”
Unlike most everyone else in my profession, I made it an absolute rule to never talk about investments at social events, even when asked, and it was interesting how this would often result in a phone call the next day. Whereas, if I’d been actively prospecting, those same people would have stuffed their hands in their pockets. I think it was for a similar reason that some of the wives hit on me, but I never, contrary to what Marilyn claimed, saw any of them. Not even for coffee. Not until very near the end.
Every so often I’d glimpse Marilyn watching me from a corner of the room – in the early days with a touch of amusement, later with growing repugnance. I once noticed her observing me secretly, using a mirror, and the reversed expression seemed to convey her feelings perfectly.
When Dr. Susan asked what had drawn us together in the first place, I said that it had been clear from the get-go that Marilyn and I were pretty different, but that was actually one of the main reasons I’d been attracted to her. “I thought we balanced each other,” I say on the tape. Then I add, with a self-deprecating chuckle that gets absolutely no reaction from you-know-who, “and, of course, I never would have trusted someone like myself.”
When it’s Marilyn’s turn to answer the question she says, in a tiny voice, that she was attracted to “my innocence.”
“To my innocence?” I cry, with clowning eyebrows and my mouth agape, even though one of the ground rules was that we were supposed to never question each other's observations. But at the same time that I was mocking what she’d said, there was a part of me that wanted to rise up out of my seat, lean across the gap that separated our chairs, and kiss her on the cheek.
I didn’t, of course. In part because I worried that Dr. Susan would have viewed the act as insincere, or even sarcastic.
~
After we separated I spent a lot of time trying to think about what had gone wrong, but I’ve never had much luck with the head-on approach. I find it easier to look back at individual incidents, even trivial ones, on the theory that the overall nature of a relationship is imbedded in each moment.
I brought that idea to one of the sessions, with a certain tenderness, I thought, but when Dr. Susan asked me to give an example of such a moment I picked a pretty weird one. I told the story about the time when Marilyn and I paid what was a lot of money for us in those days to rent a nice beachside condo, but she got the week wrong and we arrived on the very day we were supposed to check out. We ended up staying at a tacky motel on the highway and going to a public beach that stank of coconut oil and radios.
“And how was this a ‘typical’ scene?” Dr. Susan asks on the tape, no doubt suspicious of the fact that the screw-up was Marilyn’s fault.
“What was typical,” I say, “wasn’t what happened, but how we reacted to it. I mean, I could have laughed about the mistake, found a silver lining, even turned it into a positive experience – I do that all that time at work. If you can’t take rejection you should get out of sales, you know. But all Marilyn could think about was the waste – the expensive condo sitting empty for the week before, with its panoramic view of the ocean, the brochure images of us in the hot tub, sipping champagne, staring into each others’ eyes. All that had been lost. So it was a miserable week. I think we left on Wednesday or Thursday.”
“And how do you feel now, when you think back on that time?” Dr. Susan asks me.
There’s a long pause. Finally I say, “I felt that – ” But then I stop and choke up. I try again to speak but don’t get any farther. And then I say, in a broken voice, “I feel very sad. I feel hollowed out with sadness.” I actually sob a bit – one of the only times I did that in the sessions – but then I cover it with a shaky laugh, and say, “No, I’m OK,” when Marilyn passes me the tissue box.
Dr. Susan asks me what it was about this moment that makes me so sad. I say that I think it’s because the lost vacation reminds me of the lost marriage, and both she and Marilyn seem satisfied with that answer. But I think I knew, even then, that it was more than that.
~
I don’t mean to imply that Marilyn was some sort of dweeby loser. Although she had trouble standing up for her feelings, she was smart and strong in other ways. She was Phi Beta at Holyoke, and at the top of her class when she got her Masters in City Planning. When she got an offer to work for the City of New York I was able to switch from the Boston office, which I thought was a pretty progressive move for a guy like me – I mean, to follow the wife’s career. People said Marilyn had the potential to hold public office one day, and she had the brains for it. But not the stomach. The nature of the political process, and the human suffering that resulted from it so disgusted her that when a new administration was elected she resigned and threw herself into volunteer work.
Ironically, it was because of Marilyn’s volunteer activities that we were invited to a lot of cocktail parties, and it was at one of those parties that I met Brenda, a “bottle blonde.” I liked her raspy voice, and I liked her spunk. If I’d made the “first wife” comment to Brenda she would’ve shot right back that I’d soon be her “late husband.” But without rancor.
She lived in Westchester but came into the city once a week or so, and after some polite flirting we started to get together in the afternoons, after the markets closed. There wasn’t much danger of things getting out of hand – she was comfortably married, with kids, a summer house on the Island and an iron-clad pre-nup – but after three or four months, as the holiday season approached, I couldn’t stand the guilt anymore, so I confessed the affair to Marilyn, without telling her who it was.
When I explained that this was the only time anything like this had ever happened, Marilyn said she believed me, but in a flat voice. When I said, “No, really,” she admitted that she found it “a bit hard to believe,” and added that she – and her friends – had always assumed that I fooled around a little.
“All those years, you assumed I was fooling around?” I said.
“I thought it was possible,” she said. Then she looked down, the way she does when I suggest that she buy an expensive dress, and said, “And yes, I thought it was likely.”
“So, let me see if I have this right,” I said. “For fourteen years – or let’s say even just the last seven or eight – you assumed I was fooling around, and you were willing to look the other way. But now that I actually am fooling around, it's not OK anymore. Is that what you’re saying?”
I must have spoken in a way that reminded her of her father because she cringed. I said I was sorry and I would end the affair. I did end it, and she said she would try to forgive me, but before she really had time to do that it happened again. I met a woman on a plane who was not really my type – she was almost ten years older than me, and a smoker – but when she told me her name was Brenda I figured it was meant to be.
After that I considered specializing in Brendas, the way philatelists specialize in stamps with birds or airplanes. I told myself that I might learn a lot that way. By limiting the variables I might even be able to isolate what love was about, or not about. But out of laziness, or fear, I settled for a Nancy, and once the chain of Brendas was broken, it became just a series of affairs without direction.
Marilyn tried to forgive me a few more times, but before long even she reached her limit, so we went to Dr. Susan, who had done “wonders” for another couple.
~
In the beginning Dr. Susan was very interested in our childlessness, but she abandoned this line of inquiry as soon as she realized that I was the one who’d wanted kids and Marilyn who had resisted – postponing them first while she got her Masters, then while her city planning career was in full swing, and later for a variety of other reasons. She was forty when we finally got around to trying and by that time there was a problem with her plumbing. In one session, Marilyn speculated that perhaps this was why I was looking for another woman, and said she’d understand if I needed to be with someone who could give me children. The way she said it reminded me of those prospects who aren’t surprised when a speculative investment doesn’t work out, because they never really believed that they were worth a 300% return.
I said something along those lines – that I didn’t think Marilyn valued herself highly enough, and that made it difficult for me to value her as much as I should have. I thought Dr. Susan would jump on that as an example of me trying to reverse the blame, but, surprisingly, it was Marilyn who flared up.
“Is that why you never tried to ‘sell’ me?” she shot back, her eyes wide with newfound anger. I spent almost two hours this morning trying to find the tape of this comment so I could listen to it more closely but I couldn’t find it. I finally realized that it didn’t take place at Dr. Susan’s. It was six or seven months later, at her lawyer’s office. We were signing the Separation Agreement, and at one point, instead of passing a document to my lawyer, who was supposed to look it over and then pass it to me, Marilyn passed the paper directly to me. Force of habit, I guess. As she did, our eyes met for a moment, directly, and without mirrors. She was close to tears, but at the same time a strength was emerging in her, and that was when the anger flooded suddenly into her eyes she told me how disappointed she was that I’d never tried to sell her.
At first I wasn't sure what she meant. Then, while the lawyers covered the awkwardness by double-checking clauses, she explained how I was always selling something, how if it wasn’t junk bonds or a hedge fund, then I was just selling myself – my wittiness, my success, my unique blend of innocence and sophistication, whatever.
“You're not really happy except when you're selling something to someone,” she said, or words to that effect. “But you never tried to sell me on yourself. You discussed terms with me. We had arguments that could be viewed as negotiations. You tried to sell me ideas, but you never tried to sell me yourself. Do you see what I'm talking about?” she asked, the anger draining then into something more frail and loving.
I said I thought I did, even though I didn’t, really. Not then and there. But I think I do now.
~
At sales seminars the most popular session is always the one on closing. For example the line, “Your place or mine?” is what’s called “Closing on a Minor Proposition.” Literally, in that case. Then there’s the one I call the “Abracadabra Close,” where the salesman snaps his fingers and proclaims, grandly, “And suppose that I can make that little problem disappear? Do we have a deal then?” And there are hundreds – probably thousands – of other closes.
Personally, I’ve never been big on closing techniques. If customers doesn’t sound interested, I don’t push it, because even if you get them to sign, problems will pop up later. On the other hand, there are times where prospects are resisting an idea that really makes sense for them but I can’t get them to commit. In cases like that I’ll sometimes resort to what I call the True Confession Close.
It works like this. After they turn me down, or just put the thing on permanent hold, I lower my head, even if we’re on the phone, and then say, “Well, since there isn't anything else I can tell you about this opportunity, I’d like to just tell you one thing about myself. If I may.”
If they hem or haw in the slightest I drop it. But if they say OK, or are tolerantly silent, then I tell them one personal thing about myself. Not something disingenuously pertinent to the matter at hand, like how taking a chance paid off big for me or one of my clients, or some sob story about my mother’s heart condition. Just the first thing that comes to mind. It doesn’t really matter what it is. All that matters is that I tell it honestly, and with as much genuine feeling as I can muster.
When I’m done I raise my head and simply say, “So, now you know a little something about Paul Reynolds.” I don’t even mention the investment. If they want to bring it up, fine. If they call back an hour later, I’ll certainly take the call. But if I never hear from them again, I’ll understand that as well. And you’d be surprised at how often something comes from this.
The reason I bring up the True Confession Close is that I’m thinking of trying it this evening. I’m invited to a cocktail party at the Hendersons. I know Marilyn will also be there because she called yesterday to ask if I was going. I said I was planning to go, but I’d skip it if my presence would make her uncomfortable. In a voice that was stronger than I expected she said no, it would be fine if I was there. She hesitated, then added that it would give me a chance to meet Harry.
Although I dated aggressively during our separation, once we were actually divorced I stopped entirely, and it’s been almost a year since I’ve been with anyone. Marilyn – running opposite again – didn’t date at all during the separation, but about six months after the divorce she began seeing this Harry fellow. I’ve heard about him from our mutual friends and enemies. He’s older than Marilyn, and has custody of two kids from a previous marriage. Because his ex has an alcohol problem.
So I’m going to this cocktail party alone, and Marilyn is going with Harry. I doubt that the two of them will split up like she and I used to. They’ll stick in one room – the dining room, I bet, rather than the family room, where the bar will be – while I bounce from group to group. But at some point during the evening I'll run into them. Not too early. But not too late, either. I’ll try and catch them as another couple has just moved off and they’re alone for a moment.
As I imagine the scene, Marilyn, wearing the too-green sweater her sister gave her three hundred years ago, sees me coming and looks down, like when I used to begin one of my stupid jokes, or when her father would say something she perceived as critical. Harry – he’s a bit heavier than I expected – notices her discomfort and looks up to see what caused it. I stride into the picture and give him a big smile and a firm handshake, like I’m meeting a high net worth prospect.
“Hi there,” I say, in a large voice. “You must Harry. I’m Paul, Paul Reynolds. And so on. We chat for a few minutes about nothing in particular, then Marilyn and I are released, and we go on with our lives.
But the other possibility is that Marilyn’s eyes do not drop when I approach, that her hair is longer, and in place of the green sweater she’s wearing something soft, if not cashmere. Even before I reach for Harry’s hand she puts hers lightly on his shoulder and says, in a voice just large enough for a small theatre, “Harry, I’d like you to meet Paul Reynolds.” An then, the smile sparking in her green eyes before it snaps down to her thin lips, she adds, “Paul’s my first husband.”
It’s the smile that gives me hope, just as it’s always a good sign when prospects crack a joke. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to buy, but it does say that they’re open to the possibility. When I see Marilyn smile like that, like the really old days, I’m encouraged, and after a chit and a chat about her and Harry and the party – at the moment when Harry is about to say, “nice to have met you” – I make my move. I jump right into the Full Confession Close. That is, I just say the first thing that comes to my mind in the moment. And with feeling.
I don’t want to pre-think what that first thing might be, or imagine how I might feel about it, just as I would never do that with a prospect. The only thing that matters is that it be real, and expressed with feeling.
I realize it’s not likely to work. Not now. Its most likely that her eyes will widen in a bewilderment bordering on fear and Harry will put his arm around her and lead her away as she says something about me getting that way when I’ve had a few, even though I may not have had a single drink up to that point. On purpose. It’s also possible that she won’t react at all in the moment, but will call tomorrow, or the next day, or a week from Wednesday, to say that it would be better if we avoided each other completely for a time. Or she may just listen politely and not react in the slightest. The beauty of the True Confession Close – as well as its most fearful flaw – is that it’s impossible to predict what will happen. But even if it doesn’t work, even if Marilyn remains convinced that I was and always will be too risky an investment, at least I will have finally made the pitch.