This podcast is supported by Cartier. In celebration of the Trinity Collection's 100th anniversary, Cartier shares testaments of love in all its forms, from around the world. Please keep listening for today's love story later in this episode. >> From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Recently on the show, we've been celebrating 20 years of the Modern Love column, asking some of our favorite people to read essays that they connect to personally. Today, we're closing out our season with actor Peter Gallagher. Peter got famous mostly playing a particular.

Kind of role. Skeezy, cheating, lying men. That was back in the late 80s, early 90s in movies like Sex, Lies, and Videotape and American Beauty. But if you miss that chapter of Peter's career, you might associate him with a totally different kind of character. Sandy Cohen, the loving dev... Voted dad and husband on the TV show The O.C. And now, having met Peter myself, I am very happy to report that Peter is way more like Sandy than his other roles. It's just so clear he really loves his family. He showed me his phone background when he came into the studio. It's a photo of his wife, Paula Harwood, from when they first met. And if you look him up, his Instagram is a total dad in Instagram, full of long captions bragging about his kids and cute selfies with Paula. And it just so happened that the

Very day Peter and I spoke was his and Paula's 41st wedding anniversary. So today Peter reads the essay failing. In marriage does not mean failing at marriage, by Joe Blair. And as I talked to people About his own relationship, I started to understand what's kept it going for so long. Peter Gallagher, welcome to Modern Love, or should I say, welcome back to Modern Love. Well, thank you very much, Anna. It is a total pleasure to have you here. You read an essay for us back in 2017. Now you're here again. And Peter, I heard that today, this very day we're talking is your 41st. Wedding anniversary? God, it sounds so embarrassing when you're in show business, but yes, it's true. Okay, I've read in interviews where you say that it's embarrassing to be together for 41 years, but tell me what you mean by that. Just that it's, it's, uh, it's not...

Something you hear every day or and it's not something I ever really am interested in promoting because I always feel like the people say oh you know how long we've been married and then they do it in the press and then six months later they're on the rocks. But you you want to jinx it is what you're saying. Well I'm not jinxing it it's just I do think it's dangerous to Like promote it or talk about it. It's not immutable, it's a living. Oh, I see what you're saying. It's something that needs to be... It's like it's a garden. Well, congratulations again. - Thank you. - Tell me what, 41 years, what comes to mind when you think of 41 years? Holy shit. It's just astounding, really, because I don't think either of us feel substantially different or changed. Of course, we probably are. And I feel very lucky about it. I feel very lucky about it. Do you have any advice for people who are hoping to make it that long in their marriage? Don't get divorced. There you go.

Forward yeah. Anything else? Good luck. Well the fact is it's you know I find there's very little certainty about anything in life. So much of life, including love and work and the choices you make is built more on suspicion than certainty. And it's being able to listen to those subterranean streets. That are talking to you and you kind of hope you're going in the right direction, but there's very little certainty I think. picking up on the sign. The signs that this is something worth holding on to. Yes, and being willing to cope and accept the uncertainty. Of it anyway. The story I heard about how you met your wife, Paula, you met her your first week of college.

At Tufts University on a stairwell. - God, you've been doing research. - Well, there you go. You gotta do it for the job. - Oh my God, this is the New York Times building. Of course you have been. - Can you tell me a bit about that story? I love that image, meeting on a stairwell. Tell me how you first saw her. - It was our first week of freshman year in college. - How old were you, 18? - Yeah. - Wow. - Yeah. Oh, wow. Whoa, we've known each other for a very long time. I think it was September 13th. - Wow. - We think that it was September 13th. - Okay. - It was at Bush Hall at Tufts University. And I was going up the stairs to. See a girl and she was coming down the stairs to see a boy. And no words were exchanged. And I don't remember anything about anything, but I remember almost every moment of that. And we've just sort of, you know. Home, glided by each other. She was in this special place.

Spectacular hair and this tight turtleneck thing and a disco belt and tight. Corduroy bell-bottoms and platform shoes. Okay, gorgeous. And I looked like, you know, I had just left eighth grade gym class. Or something like that. She was way, way, way, way, way cooler than I am still. And it was just powerful. And I spent. The next seven years trying to figure out how I could go out with her. I was gonna say so you're both going to see other dates. Let's say you clearly Remember what she was wearing. You remember. Tell me a little bit more about that feeling that you remember. Was it like a, I've known you before even though I don't...

What was that feeling for you? - I was just kind of surprised at the feeling. I had never really felt anything like that. I found her in this freshman yearbook and I would look at her picture and I think, wow. As being someone unattainable, you know, as wow. And um... Yeah, it was weird. What was the first time you talked to her? Do you remember that? Probably a few years later. No, I was pretty dweeby. No, what I did was I would, well, regardless of my class. I would manage to be in the cafeteria for lunch when she was. And so I would make her laugh. And frankly, that's still like a huge component of our relationship. Sarah, I don't know, like how far into the relationship did you think to yourself like, I want to marry this-- Was there a moment? We were driving up to Boston to see a friend of hers who's the first

Person I ever knew who was getting married that was our age and it was a torrential rainstorm. It was torrential. It was, sheets of water were coming out of the windshield and so on and so forth, and we're talking about going up to this wedding. And this is not a moment I'm proud of, but it was true. I started to say, So, um, wow, like, Mar-- oh, well. Oh, wool. Yeah, Ron is getting married. Whoa, whoa. Hey, could you know... Well that's something that a lot of people do. Maybe, could you ever imagine that kind of thing? Doing something like that. You know, with somebody like me or something like that. Meanwhile, we're driving in this torrential rain. - Right. - And as I'm saying this, just what do you?

What are you asking me? Well, I'm, you know, I'm asking, are you asking me to marry you? Well, well, well, it sort of seems that way. You can ask my parents? Oh well... Yeah. No! Then I... Did and then I wrote her dad a long letter about how I would take care of her. He didn't have to worry. And we got married. And here you are now Peter 41 years later, okay So the modern love essay you chose to read today is about a marriage that lasts, but not without some serious. Hurdles along the way. It's written by Joe Blair and it's called Failing in marriage does not mean failing at marriage. Peter, what are your thoughts on this?

What did you see in this essay that drew you to it? - I felt like they loved each other. - Hmm. - And regardless of the ways in which Joe may have-- felt he failed in his marriage, I think we all do to some extent. It might be more dramatic or less dramatic but there's always that sense of what you're not getting or what you're not giving or what you should be getting or what you should be And ultimately I think it has very little to do with love or marriage. I think you hope to get to a place where you sort of embrace the whole person.

Not what they've done for me lately or what they haven't, but start to appreciate with some gratitude the fact that they occupy such an important part of your life and you there and somebody you can trust. What a beautiful way to lead us into this essay. Why don't you take it away for us whenever you're ready? >> Failing in marriage does not mean failing at marriage by Joe Blair. Alone one evening in early spring, seated on a green park bench beside the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass., I waited for Deb. The sun was setting and the temperature was falling, and I was wearing my softball jersey and knickers and wishing that I could be a man. I had remembered to bring my thick flannel shirt. Now, decorate.

Decades later, in my home in Iowa, I search for that bench on Google Maps. Here it is. Riverbend Park. Here's the bridge. The John W. Weeks Bridge. Here's our bench. The bridge arches. The still water. It makes my body ache to see it again. The place where we were young. We'd agreed to meet there in that ratty little park. I waited for her and waited. I imagined her getting off work at Legal Seafoods at the Copley Plaza, cashing out, boarding the bus, walking along the path, approaching. I imagined someone watching us as she arrived. Would they think we were madly in love? Mistake us for Harvard students? People with illustrious futures? The moon was bright.

The sun a slur of color in the west. I was cold. My thick flannel shirt at home in my closet. I'd returned to college at 26 after serving my apprenticeship in the refrigeration trade. I first noticed her at the gym. My selected author's class. On the first day, the professor asked if anyone could give him an Emerson quote, and she, blushing, raised her hand. Three months later, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We shared my tiny overheated Cambridge apartment and fell into a nightly bar crawl routine. From the plowing stars to the. Seller to Drumlins, the Cantab. After the first three rounds, I would accuse her of being in love with her cigarettes. And she would accuse me of not being truly in love with her. And I would swear on the...

Bible how I loved her with the intensity of 10 suns, while holding up my hand to order another round. We knew we needed to end this childish routine. We imagined a new town, Unsullied by the likes of us, Someplace clean and innocent. you After less than a year of squirreling away cash in a mason jar atop the refrigerator, we allowed the lease to expire, moved our furniture, a futon and a lamp, to the curb, Our parking tickets, climbed on my motorcycle and with no ultimate destination in mind, left town. Cash left by the time we rolled into Iowa to run a small brick house adjacent to a hog farrowing pen.

Iowa cornfields. Soon we found work and started a family. By the time Deb kicked me out for the first time, she had already given birth to our first two children. I moved into a duplex on East Washington in Iowa City. The inside of the reminded me of a rustic hunting lodge. The shiplap walls and ceilings were stained dark brown. I remember sliding into my Coleman sleeping bag that first night, settling myself on my camping mat and thinking, yes, this is how I'm meant to be, alone. We were united after a month or two. Then we had the twins. Saturday nights we would walk down to George's, where three beers in day and night.

I would once again accuse me of not loving her enough. And I would do my best to drum up the old enthusiasm. But I wasn't fooling either of us. - I'm a woman who was a child of our marriage. She has kicked me out five times. One time I sublet a basement apartment across the street from a small park with a basketball court, The basement was crawling with little white worms, which when they died, curled up like pill bugs. Another time, I moved into Le Chateau, a low-rent apartment complex. There was an outdoor pool on the property, but it wasn't open. When I lived there. I don't think it had been open for a long time, hence the black mud and leaves at the bottom.

There was a laundry room, which was my favorite room in the place. A single coin-operated washing machine and a single dryer. It was always warm and brightly lit, and there was a metal folding chair. And the air always smelled clean. The last time, the sixth. Me out. I left. Weary of our accusation and outrage routine, I rented another duplex in a quiet neighborhood on the way home. South side of Iowa City. I shared the place with little red ants. They really liked the sponge I used to clean my dishes. I would boil water and soak my sponge in it to kill them, then dump the floaters down the drain. I didn't do anything in this apartment. Didn't cook, read. Or listen to music. If I got home from work early, I would go to bed. If I got home late, I would go to bed.

I would lie down under my blue and white duck blanket, turn on my side and think, yes, this is how I'm meant to be. According to the landlord, the young woman who lived there before me had once dated the young man who lived across the street with his parents. After she broke it off, the young man continued texting her. He even knocked on her door at odd hours. When the young woman moved out, I moved in. Sometimes, you just have to be careful.

When it was dark, I would look through my front window at that house and think about the young man. I would wonder how one is supposed to find love. Where to look, how to begin. On weekend mornings, I took walks around the neighborhood. It was still cool enough to need a hat and a jacket. One of my neighbors had erected a book exchange. I chose a collection of Kafka short stories and then, later that day, sat on my front cinder block steps and began reading it.

But I kept thinking of Deb. I kept thinking how she would like this quiet, working-class neighborhood with the book exchange, and the red ants, and the Sycamore movie theater close enough to walk, and no traffic sound, and big deciduous trees, and rickety front steps, and cool air, and warm sun. I called her and asked her if she would... Wanted to stop over for coffee. We sat at my little kitchen table and drank our coffee. I like my little house. She liked my rickety front steps. I have always thought of Deb wherever I am, whomever I am with, whenever I experience something good.

I want her to experience the same thing. I can't stand to watch a good movie without her. Out after half an hour if I can't turn to her in the dark and whisper isn't this great I can't ride my motor cycle up into the Rocky Mountains. I can't enter a small diner with a worn pine floorboards and an antique curved glass pipe case with slices of banana cream inside. I can't take a flight without wishing she were occupying the seat beside me. I think we have the wrong idea about marriage. It's not like running a business where there are recordable credits in marriage. Debits, or buying a house where you pay your mortgage or lose it, or owning a pet where in return for companionship you are obligated to feed them and take them for walks and clean up after them. It's more like...

Learning after a thousand hangovers to stop drinking so much. Or learning after often being false to be true just once, in the hope that you can continue to be true. Or learning after habitually hating yourself to love yourself just once. In the hope that you can continue to love yourself and then learning through loving yourself to love someone else. I will always love Deb. you When she hates me, even when I hate her. Not because she's especially forgiving or pretty or pleasant. To be with, or well read, or spiritual, not because she may or may not be any of those things.

Loving her isn't transactional. I love her because I can't help it. There's something in her that makes me weak. Something vulnerable and unconquerable. Something fleeting and unmoving. After a few months in the house... With the rickety steps, I moved back in with Deb. Soon enough now, I'll be alone on the edge of sleep. Just as I am alone on the edge of all things, it's how I am. It may be how we all are, still alone, waiting, and still in love.

- Peter, thank you. What came up for you as you read this? I think it's true. There's a power and a truth to this, and a humanness to this. I feel like I was with Joe where he was and the places he described so well, but it-- It was sympathetic with where I was inside about how I feel about Paula, my wife. More from Peter Gallagher, after the break.

The break. This podcast is supported by Cartier. I was at a new friend's apartment not too long ago where I told her that I haven't spoken to my father in almost four years. She turned to me and said, I'm sorry, but I'm sorry. Said, I feel so sorry for him. I froze naturally because people normally say that they feel sorry for me when I bring up my dad. Then she said, He's missing out on how special you are. - With love from Cartier. I gave my brother a New York Times subscription. We exchange articles. And so having read the same article, we can discuss it.

He sent me a year-long subscription, so I have access to all the games. The New York Times contributes to... Our quality time together. It enriches our relationship. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift. We're reading the same stuff. We're making the same food. Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift at nytimes.com/gift. Peter, you just read the Modern Love essay Failing in Marriage Does Not Mean Failing at Marriage by Joe Blair. And I want to hone in on something Joe Blair writes about his wife. He says, I love her because I can't help it. Have you experienced that with your wife Paula or have you seen that in other areas of your life? I experience it all the time.

I remember when I was growing up, I was really trying to encourage my father and my mother to split up because it would just be so much quieter and so much more peaceful. And I said, Dad, I'll spend some time with you. Spending time with mom would be fine. Then years later probably 20 years later. I remember seeing my Mother and father holding hands, walking, holding hands and really meaning it. And I thought, you know, kids don't know everything. And always again, you know, encouraged me to believe that there was more to life, to love, to them, to us than met the eye. And, you know, in those halcyon moments when...

You can abandon the scorekeeping and abandon the transactions and begin to see just how lucky you are to be with this whole complete, complicated person. Good things seem to happen then. I mean, I love that story, seeing them holding hands and realizing what you didn't know when you were a kid, what you didn't understand. But perhaps also another lesson is, is sticking it out. Does that feel like it? That's I guess what I, yes, thank you, that's what I felt. When I saw them was that there was the potential for some grace. I love that. By virtue of just sticking it out, sticking together. You know, to return to Joe Blair's essay, I think what jumps out to...

Me is how, and we've talked about this a bit, but how he redefines what a marriage is. He says it's not like a business to maintain. It's not like caring for a pet, which we hope not. It's actually about learning to love yourself so you can more fully love the other person. Can I ask you, why do you think that is? What is it about living ourselves that allows us to love other people? - Well, I think it begins with forgiveness. Bye. You have to begin to forgive yourself because it can be like being a drunk, you know. A desire for some kind of self-abnegation or constant expression. Disdain against oneself, and it takes courage to... See things differently and to try to see things differently and believe it. But I think that exercising that muscle of forgiving yourself.

For whatever imagined sins and crimes you've committed against humanity or yourself. It sheds enough light for you to be able to be generous and to see what's there, not what's not there. Can you think of an example in your own life where loving yourself was key to being a person? To love your wife? - I just had a funny, this is, I don't know if it's related, but I just flashed on this, where I broke up with Paula once. I told my mom. Yeah, we were dating and she had met, I didn't bring many people to my house when I was growing up, ever. But I brought Paula. And I told my mother, I said, I'm just breaking up with her. - That's a wonderful young woman. And any problem you're gonna be having with her,

Because they're your problems. So you be damn sure that you've figured out what's going on with you before you start changing partners like Socks. I don't think she said socks, but she said that was the gist of it. You know, before you throw this relationship away, you investigate what it is that's really bugging you, and I bet you'll find it. An issue that you will have regardless of who you're with. Okay. - She says the most wise thing as a son, you're like, okay mom. - Okay. - But did you follow her advice? Did you look inwards and repair things? - Yeah, but it took me 30, 35 years. I didn't want to give my mother the satisfaction while she was alive of doing it. Of course. You know, it's interesting, we're talking about the kind of...

Ups and downs of a marriage and even the time leading up to marriage. And certainly Joe writes about all of the ups and downs he's been through in his relationship. And despite that, the word divorce never comes up in this essay, which is very interesting. I guess I wonder like it comes down to Joe throughout this essay is sort of Working out whether or not his relationship is working, right? Whether or not to keep going, to stay or whether or not to call it. And I guess I wonder, I mean, I'm asking you for a lot of advice, I'm not even married, but I guess I am turning to you as someone who's been married now for 41 years, like... How do you make that call? How do you know if something is working? How do you know whether to keep fighting for something? - That's what I mean about suspicion. There's very little certainty. It's like faith. It's like...

Willing to accept how little you might know. And trying to pay attention to your partner in a more inclusive view. Can I ask, what does a successful marriage look like for you and Paula? We woke up on this beautiful day in this wonderful city and we found just about everything funny. And she laughed. She had a lightness. I just felt very lucky. Peter, thank you so much for today.

Thank you, man. It was a lot of fun. - And I cannot believe that we scheduled it on your wedding anniversary. That is really- - I was kidding about today being our wedding anniversary. - Are you serious? - No, I'm serious. - Oh my God. - No, it really is. - Don't scare me. - Yeah, no, no, no, no. - We'll get the research team on this. We'll get our fact checker. - It's real. - But seriously. - It's real. - It's real. That's it for this season of Modern Love. Thank you so much for listening. More love stories. Is produced by Christina Josa, Reva Goldberg, Davis Land, and Emily Lang. It's edited by our executive--

Producer Jen Poillant, Riva Goldberg, and Davis Land. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Rowan Nemistow. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our show was recorded by Mattie Masiello and Nick Pitman. Digital production by Mihiela. Kima Tjablani, and Nell Gologli. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. He's the editor of Modern Love Projects. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.