Anyone who knows Mary Jane Tucker can tell you that Mary Jane handled her husband John’s eight-year battle with Parkinson’s disease with remarkable skill, love, and grace. Recently, my husband John and I climbed out of our casual beach clothes and made our way to Stella Maris Church in Avalon to attend the upbeat and moving funeral for our dear friend, and world-renowned otolaryngologist, Dr. John Tucker, long-term Avalon resident.
As I listened to children, grandchildren and colleagues describe their admiration and, yes, awe, for this deeply-respected physician, I reflected on the courage and cleverness with which his wife, Mary Jane Tucker, kept her sanity and ebullient goodwill through horrendous events necessitating full-time caretaking of the most stressful kind, day after day, year after year, until a quiet and honorable death enabled John to find the peace he deserved.
During the ordeal, I watched Mary Jane maneuver wheelchairs up the ramp to the cozy beach cottage across from the ocean in Avalon, where the two enjoyed a family-filled retirement. I taught John to do deep breathing to allay the anxiety that comes with a sudden physical decline from impressive athleticism into limited mobility and wheelchair living.
In her predictable fashion, Mary Jane made it a point to thank me publically for helping John breathe as the disease took its toll. As is her way, she automatically honors the relationship between her and a friend or family. When I popped in often to say hello, he would look up from his wheelchair at the table, where he might be doing a puzzle to keep his brain alert, smile earnestly, and say slowly, “It is so good to see you. Thank you for coming.”
As Parkinson’s took hold of his body, his intellect and kindness shone through. The spirit of John refused to be compromised by mere mortal illness.
As I reflected on my quarter-of-a-century friendship with these two remarkable people, I recognized them as an example of the emotionally-fit couples that work with me to achieve optimal lives and marriages.
I met the very impressive otolaryngologist, Dr. John Tucker, in 1985: dapper, aloof, well informed, he took great pride in his research, his surgery, and his passion for medicine.
Modest by nature, the depth of his knowledge became evident in a moment of conversation. He contributed in major ways to both research and patient care in many Philadelphia medical institutions, including Children’s Hospital (CHOP), St Christopher’s Hospital for Children, and Temple University Hospital.
Loyal to Penn since his days as an undergraduate and as a medical resident, John later became the Otolaryngology Departmental historian at Perelman Medical Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
The combination of superb medical knowledge, interest in teaching and research and humane and good-humored clinical service produced a Doctor’s Doctor: that was simply who John was.
As a couple, John and Mary Jane were the embodiment of the kind of emotional couple’s fitness that we teach at the Coche Center, LLC. Their long marriage allowed them to refine skills learned in earlier marriages before Mary Jane’s young widowhood.
Whether packing a cottage full of family for a superbly prepared Thanksgiving dinner, or dancing the night away at the Yacht Club of Stone Harbor, or traversing the globe for John’s many international presentations to colleagues, the couple deftly travelled from their Lower Gwynned, Pa. home to their beach cottage and back, all the time maintaining two demanding professional careers.
Much like physical fitness, emotional fitness is a way to honor interpersonal health, and prevent interpersonal decline into aggression and ill will between loving partners. Just as we go to a gym to work out, couples come to our clinical psychology practice to work from the inside out to attain optimal emotional and interpersonal fitness.
Here are three simple, key ideas to “working in” to achieve emotional coupled fitness:
- Plan and execute token acts of love. Create safety in the relationship by compiling and executing a list of loving acts you might relish, including a foot rub or a big hug first thing in the morning. Create romantic moments that appeal to each and to both of you. Talk, cuddle, love, rub, pat, discuss, have coffee, read, share the news. .
- Make your self happy. Research tells us that multiple acts of pleasure create happiness in each of us from day to day. Note what you appreciate about the other and tell them frequently. Thank openly for kindnesses and affection. Celebrate each other. A well cared for self is the backbone of a solid relationship.
- Talk things through. Use your together time to talk about what hurts, what feels fabulous, and how to make needed relationship changes. This ability is the central facet of an emotionally fit couple.
To Consider: What is your version of emotional fitness? What will you do to attain it?
To Read: Dr. Barton Goldsmith. Emotional Fitness for Couples. New Harbinger Publications, 2005
