SHARESE, FROM COLLEGE GRADUATION TO MARRIAGE

The back seat and trunk piled high with belongings, 22-year-old Sharese hugged her mother and brother good-bye, jumped in the car, and headed toward the interstate with a sense of newfound independence mixed with apprehension. Three months earlier, the family had watched proudly as Sharese received her bachelor's degree in chemistry from a small university forty miles from her home. Her college years had been a time of gradual release from economic and psychological dependence on her family. She returned home on weekends as often as she desired and lived there during the summer months. Her mother supplemented Sharese's loans with a monthly allowance. But this day marked a turning point. She was moving to her own apartment in a new city 800 miles away, with plans to begin working on a master's degree the following week. In charge of all her educational and living expenses, Sharese felt more self-sufficient than at any previous time in her life.

During her college years, Sharese had made important lifestyle changes and settled on a vocational direction. Overweight throughout high school, she lost 20 pounds during her freshman year, revised her diet, and began a regimen of exercise by joining the university's ultimate Frisbee team. The sport helped her acquire healthier habits and leadership skills as team captain. A summer spent as a counselor at a camp for chronically ill children, combined with serious health problems in her family, convinced Sharese to apply her background in science to a career in public health.

Still, she wondered whether her choice was right. Two weeks before she was scheduled to leave, Sharese confided to her mother that she had doubts and might not go. Her mother advised, "Sharese, we never know ahead of time whether the things we choose are going to suit us just right, and most times they aren't perfect. It's what we make of them—how we view and mold them—that turns a choice into a success." And so Sharese embarked on her journey and found herself face to face with a multitude of exciting challenges and opportunities.

Sharese described her first year in graduate school as a "cognitive turning point." During the first month, she pored over research articles on cardiovascular functioning. In her African-American extended family, her father, an uncle, and three aunts had died of heart attacks in their forties and fifties. The tragedies had prompted Sharese to worry about her own lifespan, reconsider her health-related behaviors, and enter the field of public health in hopes of finding ways to relieve the health problems of black Americans. As part of her internship in a public health clinic, she observed first-hand the many factors that affect human health-related behaviors. For a time, she was intensely uncomfortable about the fact that clear-cut solutions to everyday dilemmas were so hard to come by. "Working in this messy reality is so different from the problem solving I did in my undergraduate classes," she commented to her mother in a phone conversation one day.

Attempting to apply what she had learned to her own life, Sharese altered the diet of her childhood and adolescence, sharply limiting red meat, eggs, butter, and fried foods. Three times a week, she delighted in running during the noon hour, making her way to a wooded trail that cut through a picturesque area of the city. Regular exercise kept her fit and slim. Compared to earlier days, when she had been sedentary and overweight, it also limited the number of respiratory illnesses she caught. And as Sharese explained to a friend one day, "Exercise gives me a positive outlook. It calms me down—takes the edge off. Afterward, I feel a burst of energy that gets me through the day. If I don't do it, I get tired in the afternoon."

During her graduate school years, Sharese and her boyfriend, Ernie, whom she had met her junior year of college, spoke weekly on the telephone and saw each other during vacations. Sharese and Ernie had first noticed each other in government class. When invited to a party given by a mutual friend, they struck up a conversation. Within a short time, Sharese discovered that Ernie was as warm and interesting as he had seemed from a distance. And Ernie found Sharese to be lively, intelligent, and attractive. By the end of the evening, the couple realized they had similar opinions on important social issues and liked the same leisure activities. They began to date steadily, becoming engaged the summer before Sharese's final year of graduate school.

Sharese's sense of autonomy and career commitment strengthened during her graduate school years, posing grave challenges to her relationship with Ernie. One weekend, he came to visit. Consumed with uncertainty, Sharese was about to say she couldn't marry him, when he left the room. Ernie returned a moment later, wearing his jacket and holding out Sharese's sweater. "Come on, Sharese, you're so nervous about your exams that you can't study tonight. Let's go over to the coffee house." The couple went out, and Sharese said nothing about her nagging doubts. Over the next few months, she looked with envy at her friend Heather, still unattached and free to pursue the full range of career options before her.

After Sharese received her master's degree, the couple returned to Sharese's home town, where their wedding was to take place. Sharese's ambivalence quickly intensified. When Ernie asked why she was so unhappy and distracted, she blurted out that she had been hesitating about the marriage for most of the year. Ernie's admiration and respect for Sharese had strengthened over their courtship, and he reassured her of his love. His career was launched; he had been working as a real estate accountant for three years. At age 27, he felt ready to start a family. Uncertain and conflicted. Sharese felt swept toward the altar. Relatives, friends, and presents began to arrive. On the appointed day, she walked down the aisle.

During their first year of marriage, Sharese separated from Ernie twice as she tried to reconcile her needs for independence and intimacy. At first, Ernie was confused, puzzled, and angry. Sharese's mother learned of the difficulties. One day, she called Ernie and offered some sound advice:

I know Sharese has had to make some difficult adjustments so the two of you could be together, like taking a job with the health department—not the position she really wanted. Sometimes people forget those little expressions that show their partner that giving up some things you really want is worth it to have the other's love.

This may sound corny, Ernie, but it is absolute fact: It's not enough to love your wife. You must tell her you love her, and you must keep on doing this throughout life. If you really want Sharese, make your affection and esteem manifest! Show her, too, that you are interested in what she does, ask her about her work, and encourage her. . . .

Ernie, I think this could save your marriage. I can assure you: Making someone you love happy can be the greatest joy you ever know.

Sharese's doubts eventually subsided, largely because Ernie began to tell her of his feelings. In the most dramatic of these moments, he painted a large sign on her birthday and placed it in their front yard. It read, "I LOVE SHARESE." Sharese returned his sentiments, and the intimacy of their bond deepened.

Ernie's patience, stability, and forthright, affectionate communication helped Sharese realize that marriage requires generosity and compromise, but not total surrender of the self. Despite its rocky beginnings, Ernie and Sharese's marriage grew to be especially happy.

1. Describe the health problems in Sharese's extended family. Why is the incidence of these problems high among African Americans?

2. In what ways did Sharese change her lifestyle in college and graduate school? Cite research evidence on the immediate and long-term benefits of these changes.

3. Consider how Sharese and Ernie met. Is it consistent with the ways most people who establish lasting partnerships get to know one another?

4. How does Sharese's recognition of the rarity of clear-cut solutions to problems in the everyday world depict an important cognitive change in early adulthood? What leads this realization to emerge in young adulthood?

1. Research on newlyweds over the first year of married life often reveals growing dissatisfaction, as Sharese experienced. Explain why.

2. Review findings on how love changes as an intimate partnership progresses. Why was the advice Sharese's mother gave to Ernie effective in restoring and strengthening his marriage to Sharese?

3. Sharese experienced moments when she wanted out of the relationship, before and after her wedding to Ernie. Is a "rose garden" a good metaphor for marital happiness? Why or why not? What are essential ingredients of a good marriage, and do cultural images support or work against this view?

4. What factors make it more typical for wives rather than husbands to make compromises in vocational choice and development, as Sharese did when she married Ernie?