Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlo Thomas, and
Speaker 1: we're going on a series of double dates to find
Speaker 1: out what makes a marriage last. I don't often find
Speaker 1: myself hanging out with a pair of heavy hitting lawyers
Speaker 1: just for fun. But when Marlo and I had the
Speaker 1: chance to sit down with David and Mary boys, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it was. They're an incredible couple. I mean,
Speaker 1: when David met Mary, she was the assistant director for
Speaker 1: the Domestic Policy Staff under President Jimmy Carter and David
Speaker 1: was chief counsel for Ted Kennedy. Well, you don't get
Speaker 1: more power couple than that, certainly not. When we say
Speaker 1: d down to chat with them, we were eager to
Speaker 1: know about their first meeting. Were they cautious lawyers or
Speaker 1: was the attraction immediate? It took me about twelve seconds.
Speaker 1: He wasn't married, always good he was really smart, he
Speaker 1: was very good looking, and he had a little money
Speaker 1: in his pocket. So and he was a nice guy
Speaker 1: would have liked so it took me twelve seconds. Took
Speaker 1: him a while, No, it didn't take me very long.
Speaker 1: But what did you think, did you? I thought she
Speaker 1: was really sexy, which at that stage was very high
Speaker 1: priority for me and very smart. Yeah, And I asked
Speaker 1: her out the next time I was in Washington. But
Speaker 1: we were negotiating at that time because Kennedy. We were
Speaker 1: working on airline deregulation, and Kennedy had a bill that
Speaker 1: was very radical. President Carter supported a bill that was
Speaker 1: more moderate, and so we had negotiating sessions with me
Speaker 1: and six or eight other people from the administration, different agencies,
Speaker 1: and then him and I said to my colleagues, we
Speaker 1: are not negotiating with this man. And they said, well why,
Speaker 1: I said, no offense, But he's a hundred times smarter
Speaker 1: than all of us put together. That was nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: and you get married, and that was a long time.
Speaker 1: You waited. Well, he'd been married twice, yes, And people
Speaker 1: were warning me, you know, this guy marries, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't really stay with people. And that was fine with
Speaker 1: me because I'd already been married. I sort of got
Speaker 1: that out of my system. But once I moved to
Speaker 1: New York, I thought, I'm not going to live in
Speaker 1: New York and not be married. So are we getting
Speaker 1: married or am I moving back to Washington. That's good.
Speaker 1: I don't remember quite that way. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: remember I remember me asking you. I don't remember you
Speaker 1: bring it up to me, but you might have what
Speaker 1: gave you the optimism to get married a third time? Oh,
Speaker 1: I was just too much in love. And were you
Speaker 1: a little nervous about marrying a guy who'd been married
Speaker 1: twice before? Absolutely? And I figured, well, we won't have children,
Speaker 1: and it'll be fun as long as it lasts, and
Speaker 1: then I'll do something else. Why did you think you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have children? Because he already had four and I
Speaker 1: knew that if we had children then I'd be really
Speaker 1: in in this marriage. And how old were you this time?
Speaker 1: Thirty two? That's a good age to get married. It
Speaker 1: was a wonderful age. And the first child came when
Speaker 1: I was thirty three, and then the second when I
Speaker 1: was thirty five, and it was just good timing. I
Speaker 1: wasn't anxious to get married. I wasn't looking to get married.
Speaker 1: But you know, every time I saw him, I went
Speaker 1: week in the knees and I thought, that's a good sign.
Speaker 1: And it's still true. Yeah, that's a great sign. Well,
Speaker 1: I have a mental picture of your evenings together. First
Speaker 1: of all, you both have your computer, and I would
Speaker 1: think that in the evening hours you have a hard
Speaker 1: time not being on them. Here's a typical night. We
Speaker 1: go out to dinner a lot, and we go out
Speaker 1: just the two of us a lot when we can
Speaker 1: and have We call them dates. They are dates, and
Speaker 1: a typical dinner starts with sweetheart, did you see what
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court did this morning? Can you believe that?
Speaker 1: Or what do you think of this opinion? Our very
Speaker 1: first real date, we talked about the IBM anti trust
Speaker 1: case for two and a half hours. Well, I was fascinated.
Speaker 1: Well this was this was after after though, after she
Speaker 1: had appeared like ninety minutes late because there had been
Speaker 1: some crisis in the White House and she had had
Speaker 1: to stay and work on it, which she thought was
Speaker 1: entirely understandable because she was working for the President of
Speaker 1: United States. I thought, if it was an efficient president
Speaker 1: of the United States, he would have had his work done.
Speaker 1: But so it was. We did get to the ibmount
Speaker 1: of trust case, but only after she arrived and we'd
Speaker 1: went through what she'd been doing. That's true. Would you
Speaker 1: wait at ninety minutes I did. I didn't know she
Speaker 1: was She was definitely worth waiting for no cell phones
Speaker 1: in those days. Yeah, yeah, that's right, there was no.
Speaker 1: I mean because I was on the phone constantly, constantly, constantly.
Speaker 1: I was asked to get something done, and it was
Speaker 1: not something that could be done out of the White House, right.
Speaker 1: And it was a Friday night, and it was getting
Speaker 1: later and later and later, and I was just on
Speaker 1: two lines, three lines. It was. It was fun and
Speaker 1: wonderful and crazy, and I'd look at the watch and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's still there. That's amazing. It's like
Speaker 1: Phil gave a party in Chicago for me, for all
Speaker 1: the people in Chicago that he worked with him that
Speaker 1: he knew, and the movie critic and the TV critic
Speaker 1: and the newspaper people. I was very excited about it.
Speaker 1: And I was producing a movie add that I was
Speaker 1: also starring him, and I was supposed to begin the
Speaker 1: music score on Tuesday. The composer had a heart attack,
Speaker 1: and so my co producer said, you can't go away
Speaker 1: this weekend. We're going to have to write an entire
Speaker 1: score by Tuesday. So I called Phil and I say, um, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, so thrilled that you're giving this party
Speaker 1: for me. But I have sort of bad news. I
Speaker 1: can't come. Hey, you're kidding right anyway, So he gave
Speaker 1: these two hundred people came to his house. He had
Speaker 1: a tent, he had a bandy at all these people,
Speaker 1: and there is no molo And I know that, and
Speaker 1: I really thought, you know, this is it. This guy's
Speaker 1: gonna like dump meet tomorrow. So these things happen to me.
Speaker 1: When you're dealing with people who are in responsible jobs,
Speaker 1: you can't you you can't walk out on the president,
Speaker 1: and I can't walk out on a movie that I
Speaker 1: have to deliver it. And these men who marry us
Speaker 1: or who stay in love with us through that, you know,
Speaker 1: they have to be the kind of menical handle of
Speaker 1: that who can take that. I think it's important to
Speaker 1: I mean, because I think you know, part of what
Speaker 1: you know makes relationships work is each of you being
Speaker 1: interested in the other and interested in what the other
Speaker 1: is doing and how to help the other. Right, you
Speaker 1: do talk about shop. We do. We talked about a
Speaker 1: lot of other things, but but we do talk about
Speaker 1: it because, um, you know, if if you've got a
Speaker 1: difficult case, difficult legal problem or factual problem, you know
Speaker 1: it's good to just be able to talk it through
Speaker 1: with somebody who's a knows what you're doing and be
Speaker 1: as smart, and the three is sort of thoughtful and
Speaker 1: and finally and finally is patient. You know, because the
Speaker 1: more you get into something that's really complicated, the deeper
Speaker 1: you get into it, the fewer and fewer people are
Speaker 1: interested in that level of detail. If I tell somebody like, um,
Speaker 1: I've got a maybe a very interesting case where I'm
Speaker 1: trying to sue health insurance for price fixing and I
Speaker 1: trust violations, that's sort of interesting to people because they
Speaker 1: want to improve the healthcare system and big companies getting
Speaker 1: together and conspiring is kind of interesting. But then you
Speaker 1: begin to get into the second and third, and fourth,
Speaker 1: and fifth and sixth level of detail, and you began
Speaker 1: talking about how many you know insurance there are in
Speaker 1: this county and Alabama and nobody, you know, unless it's
Speaker 1: your spouse, interested in that, And what do you have
Speaker 1: to prove under section two of the Clayton in order
Speaker 1: to win this? You understand, and I'm fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: And so we talk about law, we talk about politics,
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about history. We debate, you know,
Speaker 1: did eisenhowerd do the right thing here. It's fun. But
Speaker 1: when our children were growing up, they s times thought
Speaker 1: we were arguing because they didn't understand what we were
Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking intensely and you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: well you were debating, yeah exactly, you know, because we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't entirely agree on everything. And that's good too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: were you married to a lawyer before? No, I was
Speaker 1: married to a college professor. And what were you ever
Speaker 1: married to a lawyer? Yes? Both my former wives of ours?
Speaker 1: Really huh, there's a there's a theme. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think it's important that you have different interests,
Speaker 1: but it's also important that you share some interests, right,
Speaker 1: and it's important that they understand what you're doing. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: In many ways, you're chewing up time that might otherwise
Speaker 1: be devoted to differences that cause anger and yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the words, it saves you from what other couples
Speaker 1: might devote to conflict. And that's true, although often we
Speaker 1: have friendly disagreements. You know, I think the court went
Speaker 1: too far on this or when Clarence Thomas said X,
Speaker 1: I didn't see any basis for that, and then he
Speaker 1: would say, well, you've got to look at it this way. So, yes,
Speaker 1: we avoid topics of conflict, but we have lively disagree.
Speaker 1: I have a lawyers fight. That's interesting. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I think actually one thing I hadn't really
Speaker 1: thought about this before, but but I think maybe one
Speaker 1: thing that helps in times of conflict is being lawyers
Speaker 1: because as lawyers you understand that there are different points
Speaker 1: of view. You're always dealing with somebody who has a
Speaker 1: different point of view, and and you understand that somebody
Speaker 1: who is your adversary is not your enemy. But I think,
Speaker 1: I think more important is it if you keep in
Speaker 1: context disputes, disagreements. If you get angry, and you keep
Speaker 1: that in the context of the overall relationship, you don't,
Speaker 1: you're not likely to powder go off or or stay
Speaker 1: angry very long because you understand that it's such a
Speaker 1: tiny part of your relationship, in such a small part
Speaker 1: of your time together. As a couple, They've had a
Speaker 1: lot of joy, but no shortage of tragedy either. David
Speaker 1: in particular, has had his share of heartbreak. I've lost
Speaker 1: two children. Oh yeah, my daughter had lung cancer. My
Speaker 1: son and this aneurism. She was forty eight, and he
Speaker 1: was fifty terrible. My job was to be there. There's
Speaker 1: nothing you can say. You're never the same when you
Speaker 1: lose a child. So I m. When we first heard
Speaker 1: that Jonathan was in a bad way, you said, I,
Speaker 1: I can't do this again, and I said you can
Speaker 1: and we will, we must and and we are. Ye.
Speaker 1: That's what marriage is kind of for, to be the
Speaker 1: cushion of life. Right. When my father died, I loved
Speaker 1: him so much and he was my best friend ever.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a real daddy's girl. And when
Speaker 1: he died, I just, I mean I just grieved something terrible.
Speaker 1: You know. I went to a shrink that I had
Speaker 1: gone to years before, and I said, I, this is like,
Speaker 1: is this sick that I'm crying so much? You know?
Speaker 1: What is? You know? He said, no, this is what
Speaker 1: life is. He said, And this is why some people
Speaker 1: don't commit to love, Yeah, because they know at the
Speaker 1: end somewhere something's going to happen. The loss is gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Right And Phil, God, Phil just brought me through it
Speaker 1: and had my mom come and live with us for
Speaker 1: three months. I mean, and she was a mess and
Speaker 1: I was a mess. He just entertained us everybody invited people.
Speaker 1: He took us out. I mean it was just we
Speaker 1: both my mother and I were both basket cases. But
Speaker 1: he really came through it, really, And that's the cushion. Oh,
Speaker 1: a good Irish man, a good Irish lad. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: have more. After a quick break, we're back to our
Speaker 1: conversation with David and Mary. Boys. They're both so smart.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that David was dropping out after
Speaker 1: high school. I mean, I don't know what would happened
Speaker 1: if my first wife had not gotten me go to college.
Speaker 1: But why didn't you want to go? I didn't like school.
Speaker 1: I'm dyslexic. As I got further along in school, reading
Speaker 1: was I didn't really like reading the law? How did
Speaker 1: you do it? I listened well. I can learn almost
Speaker 1: everything I wanted just listening in class to my professors.
Speaker 1: I'm still not a great reader, but I mean I
Speaker 1: didn't read at all until I was in third grade. Nothing.
Speaker 1: The most important thing is to understand that it is
Speaker 1: an input problem. It's not a processing problems. It is
Speaker 1: an ability to absorb information. It's not how well you think.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no negative correlation between dyslexia and intelligence. Right,
Speaker 1: But all those facts that you have to gather in
Speaker 1: order to make a case, all the research I have
Speaker 1: to do, and I do have to do some reading.
Speaker 1: But as I said, I listened really well. I think
Speaker 1: it has taught me to organize my thoughts, to simplify things,
Speaker 1: see how the things are important, because you can't read everything.
Speaker 1: That's breathtaking. It really is. I bet you can't imagine it, right.
Speaker 1: I'm not hard wired that way, but I don't have
Speaker 1: his processing power. But it's fun to live with. So
Speaker 1: where are you on the jealousy meter? I'm sicilian, I'm
Speaker 1: very jealous. David has friends who are women, and they
Speaker 1: are friends, and I was jealous for a while, but
Speaker 1: then I put that away. I said, how did you
Speaker 1: deal with it? I said, you know what, if he
Speaker 1: wanted to be with him, he'd be with him. He's
Speaker 1: left two wives, he knows how to do it. He
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be here, He'll just go off. So
Speaker 1: why am I thinking about this? I figured we off
Speaker 1: and had his former wives or one of them come
Speaker 1: on vacations because they're grandchildren and children were there, and
Speaker 1: he asked me, once, do you mind if Carol comes
Speaker 1: on the Christmas trip, I thought his first wife, and
Speaker 1: I thought, why would I mind? Because her four children
Speaker 1: who were still growing up and then grandchildren were on
Speaker 1: those trips, and you're spending a week in the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: How can I say grandmother can't be there. So I
Speaker 1: said him myself, if he wanted to be with her,
Speaker 1: he would be with her. So yeah, bring her on.
Speaker 1: And I really meant that. And it's been good, and
Speaker 1: it's good for the children. Yeah, I'm sure it is,
Speaker 1: but I'm not jealous of them at all. His second
Speaker 1: wife is a friend of mine. Yeah. When I met her,
Speaker 1: I sort of gasped and thought, that's me ten years older.
Speaker 1: That's how this works. Okay, you know, it'll be fun
Speaker 1: while it last. Turns out it did last. One of
Speaker 1: the things I think that we've learned from a lot
Speaker 1: of these couples is that people a change things about
Speaker 1: themselves in order to accommodate another person. Well. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: for example, she wanted to tear down my house, and
Speaker 1: that seemed to me at the time to be a
Speaker 1: really bad idea, because I thought it was a perfectly
Speaker 1: good house, a ranch style, hideous of rubbish. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a nicer house than I'd ever lived in
Speaker 1: my life until then, and I thought it was I
Speaker 1: thought it was perfectly good. Now I eventually understood that
Speaker 1: building another house was more important to her than keeping
Speaker 1: the house that we had was to me. And once
Speaker 1: I understood that, I was perfectly happy to tear down
Speaker 1: the house and build a new one. And as in
Speaker 1: so many things, she was right, because this is a
Speaker 1: much nicer house, and I'm much happier here than I
Speaker 1: would have been if we hadn't torn down the durned
Speaker 1: the house and built this one. But you were able
Speaker 1: to not make that a power struggle and just and
Speaker 1: just say, Okay, this means more to her than to me.
Speaker 1: It does. And also and also you know, there are
Speaker 1: lots of things that I don't do so well, and
Speaker 1: a lot of things that I don't know so well
Speaker 1: that she knows better than I do and does better
Speaker 1: than I do. Each of us is very conscious of
Speaker 1: if there's something that's more important to the other than
Speaker 1: it is to us, that we just decide to do
Speaker 1: it the way the other one wants to. For example,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I did before we were
Speaker 1: married was I would go to Las Vegas often and
Speaker 1: when we got married. Um, Mary despised Las Vegas. She
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the first time we went, she
Speaker 1: pointed out that most of the men there were wearing
Speaker 1: more jewelry than she was. And um, I mean she
Speaker 1: there was almost nothing there that she really liked. But um,
Speaker 1: and then then she realized that I enjoyed going there,
Speaker 1: and um, and I'd like to gamble, and I liked
Speaker 1: the shows, and I liked and I liked the ambiance
Speaker 1: and um and so she um uh and not grudgingly.
Speaker 1: When you do something for somebody, don't do it grudgingly.
Speaker 1: Don't don't make them feel that you're doing them a favor.
Speaker 1: And she has sort of embraced going to Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: And I think, although she may tell you differently when
Speaker 1: the microphones are off and you're a private, but I
Speaker 1: think she actually enjoys going there. How often do you go?
Speaker 1: Probably three or four times a year, wow, to Vegas?
Speaker 1: See what I did? I used to I used to
Speaker 1: go six times a year. Wow. I used to go
Speaker 1: every other month, but but now about three or four times.
Speaker 1: I lost twenty dollars and I was depressed. I didn't
Speaker 1: have twenty dollars worth of fun. Yeah, right back when
Speaker 1: I didn't have a chance. Well what about you though, Well,
Speaker 1: here's what I did. I figured out, okay, this gee,
Speaker 1: I thought he was so intelligent. Here we are going
Speaker 1: to lost Vegas. Now. He never went crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: he never lost a lot of money. You know, he
Speaker 1: never gambled the house. Yeah. And I decided, all right,
Speaker 1: he likes to do this, I don't. We do stuff
Speaker 1: I like to do that he doesn't like to do.
Speaker 1: So we'll leave in it out. And I said, what
Speaker 1: can I do there that I like? I like to
Speaker 1: hit tennis balls. So we would go there and I
Speaker 1: would hire the pro and I'd spend the afternoon on
Speaker 1: the tennis court. And I was perfectly happy. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I so I just decided, he likes to do this,
Speaker 1: We do stuff I like to do that he doesn't,
Speaker 1: and so I'll find a niche Yeah, and I did.
Speaker 1: I find. Now it's fun to go that's and the
Speaker 1: shows are good. That's I think I can never stamp good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so what are some of the things that he
Speaker 1: does for you that that he doesn't like to do
Speaker 1: what you like to do. I might be wrong about this,
Speaker 1: but when we first started taking bike trips as a vacation, right,
Speaker 1: a vacation. You're you know, you're grinding your way about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Our first bike trip was twenty nine, nine years ago,
Speaker 1: and we've been doing them ever since. Really we do
Speaker 1: two or three a year. Wow. And it's perfectly clear
Speaker 1: that he does that. I think, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: me in Las Vegas. I think now kind of like it.
Speaker 1: I have come to sort of like it. Um, but
Speaker 1: um in the beginning the idea of um, I mean,
Speaker 1: you get it. These bike trips. You go for a
Speaker 1: week and you and you travel like forty fifty sometimes
Speaker 1: sixty miles a day, Oh my god, and get up
Speaker 1: early and um you so hey, I don't like to
Speaker 1: get up early, be I don't really dislike exercise, but
Speaker 1: not a high priority for me. I'm just fascinated that
Speaker 1: you do these bike trips. I'm gonna really. One of
Speaker 1: the nice things is that we're together the entire day,
Speaker 1: nothing else happening. You know, we can just ride together,
Speaker 1: talk and it's very peaceful. Yeah. There came a time
Speaker 1: when I said to you, whatever you want to do,
Speaker 1: I want to do wow, And I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: here you are. You're a lawyer. You're a feminist and
Speaker 1: you're saying to this man, whatever you want. And I thought,
Speaker 1: good grief, it's come to this. But a lot of
Speaker 1: things changed. It wasn't a negotiation anymore. The next day
Speaker 1: he became a nicer person who was and it became
Speaker 1: an upward spiral. I think that's kindness, and it changed everything.
Speaker 1: And I remember if, well, actually, whatever you want to Taiwan,
Speaker 1: because I really felt the same way. We decided. I
Speaker 1: don't know, ten years into our marriage, we've been bickering
Speaker 1: about unimportant things, and we just decided are we in
Speaker 1: or are we out married? Or aren't we? If we're married,
Speaker 1: let's make that a really good thing. And so when
Speaker 1: we disagree on stuff, and I think he has an
Speaker 1: eye with what's really important here, a great, loving marriage.
Speaker 1: So he's dead wrong on this issue, Who cares? I
Speaker 1: don't really, I don't have to win every argument. Is
Speaker 1: one of you more likely to be the peacemaker or
Speaker 1: oh me? Of course? No, I don't think either one
Speaker 1: of us. Yea, I would not say. I think we
Speaker 1: kind of trade around on that. I would say either
Speaker 1: one of us. I think that we're both pretty good.
Speaker 1: As I say at keeping things in context. I'm married
Speaker 1: to someone who is not your typical great lawyer. He
Speaker 1: is off the charts. I use that to my advantage.
Speaker 1: I don't resent that, you know, I learned stuff from him.
Speaker 1: I still are you, I respond, but you pretty much
Speaker 1: dazzle me with what you come up with, and I
Speaker 1: love it. That's Mary and David boys. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they could be more in tune with each other.
Speaker 1: It was so moving to see how they share each
Speaker 1: other's joys and sorrows and passions. That's what marriage is
Speaker 1: all about. Until next time, I'm filled down at you
Speaker 1: and I'm Marlo Thomas. I I don't need to be
Speaker 1: right right. I can tell myself I'm right. Double Day
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show was created
Speaker 1: by US and produced by Sarah Lily. Michael Bahari is
Speaker 1: associate producer. Musical adaptations of It Had to Be You
Speaker 1: by Stellwagon Sympinet. Marlo and I are executive producers, along
Speaker 1: with Mia Lobell and Letal Molad from Pushkin Special Thing
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jacob Weisberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars,
Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler, Emily Rostek, Jason Gambrel, Paul Williams,
Speaker 1: and Bruce Klucker. If you like our show, please remember
Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review. Thanks for listening.