Chemistry Lessons

What makes or breaks compatibility? Eight couples bare their souls.

By PT Staff, published on September 01, 2004 - last reviewed on June 16, 2005

Writing detailed letters enabled Vatsala and Ehud to crystallize their thoughts and feelings for themselves and each other. "We considered all the issues that turn out to be land mines in a marriage," says Vatsala. "We even discussed whether our children would be breast-fed or not. Because of that, we have domestic peace." And when disagreements do arise, the Sperlings hold each other to the law of the letters -- their household's constitution. They've published their epistolary relationship in a book, A Marriage Made in Heaven: A Love Story in Letters.

Arranged marriage appealed to Ehud because of its emphasis on ferreting out compatible values. "I was determined not to make another mistake; I wanted to expose myself completely," he says. He saw in modern American courtship the tendency to fall into bed quickly, and then after years pass, to wake up as virtual strangers who do not want the same things out of life. So he was eager to take personal attraction out of the equation. "There was no chemistry charging the atmosphere," he says.

"We knew each other better after a year of correspondence than most married couples probably do after living together for years," says Ehud. That deep knowledge gave Vatsala the confidence to leave her country, family and career -- and to fly across the world to a new life with Ehud.

The Two Act Lovers

Warren Bennis and Grace Gabe

Nearly a half-century ago, this couple's whirlwind romance was thrown off course as each pursued high-flying careers before the concept of "work-family balance" existed. They married other people, raised children and divorced their spouses. Thirty years later, they picked up the dropped thread of their relationship and acknowledged that neither had ever loved anyone else as much. Grace, a psychiatrist and coauthor of Step Wars: Overcoming the Perils and Making Peace in Adult Stepfamilies, and Warren, a professor at the University of Southern California's Business School, have now been married for 12 years.

"When we met [in 1957], there was instant attraction," says Grace, now 70. "We were extremely compatible, in terms of our interest in the arts, literature and music. And we were very compatible sexually."

"I felt she was the incarnation of everything I had dreamed of," says Warren, 79. "It doesn't mean we like all of the same things; it means that we share what we think is important in the world, our sense of adventure."

But while other women were typing their sweethearts' dissertations, Grace was struggling under the taxing demands of medical school. The pressure ate away at their relationship, yet they didn't know how to articulate the problem or tackle it head on.

Now in a second incarnation -- and in a different stage of life -- they share a reverence for the evolving nature of relationships. "When we reunited, we were no longer trying to prove ourselves with respect to our careers," says Grace.

Neither feels that the other has changed significantly in terms of their underlying values or dispositions. They both love plays and concerts as much as they used to. Grace prefers solitude, just as she did when she was 23, while Warren hasn't lost his magical ability to work a room. Yet they appreciate that each has had a lifetime's worth of rich experiences while they were apart.

"Now, we negotiate when incompatibilities arise. It's about the others' needs as well as your own," Warren says. "I've learned that sustaining and nourishing love is something that one has to continue to think about. You have to tweak things regularly. The alternative is entropy and decay."