Sheldon and Raye Isenberg have a dual-career marriage complicated by a common business stationery. As clinical social workers in private practice in Naperville since 1980, they bring to their counseling sessions a perspective gained from sharing 26 years of marriage, parenthood and the office rent.
Sheldon came to the marriage like most men of his generation, he said, expecting his wife to take care of him, their children and all things domestic. Shortly after their first son, Joshua, now 21, was born, Sheldon found himself with a women`s magazine in one hand and a diaper in the other.
”I can`t conceive of this issue now, but I honestly couldn`t imagine why I had to diaper our first child,” he said. ”That was the mother`s role. And if Raye didn`t want to be doing the total job of motherhood as I defined it, then somehow that meant she wasn`t a good mother.”
Raye is the beneficiary of a ”fluke of history,” the women`s movement, she said, and self-worth fostered by being the first woman in her family to get a college education. Their marriage was to be a partnership or it was nothing.
When she told Sheldon that mothering and housekeeping were not the same thing, and she would cook three nights a week and he would cook three nights a week, ”he threw a tantrum, and then I threw a tantrum,” she related.
”I cooked,” Sheldon said.
”We call it our 50-50 period,” Raye said. ”We divided up the chores, money, everything.” Eventually, task-sharing became second nature. By the time Ariel, now 13, came along, they were on a roll.
Joint parenthood meant making career concessions that included taking turns leaving the office at 3 p.m. to be home when Ariel came home from school, not working on Saturdays, turning down out-of-town speaking invitations and limiting evening appointments. Even so, their life was far from serene.
”There were times we hated each other, and I said to him, `It`s a good thing I believe in the institution of marriage.` . . . It wasn`t easy. You have to be willing to slug it out verbally-to see it through and get help if you can`t resolve it yourself. ”
The glue that kept him bonded to the marriage, Sheldon said, was a deep desire ”to do right by Raye” and a value system that sat core-deep in his being.
”Change is constant, but some things don`t change. My values haven`t changed. One of my functions as a man is to bring home the bread. That`s a supportive role. But it was just as supportive to learn how to diaper our child. The value hasn`t changed. The way I carried out the value changed,” he said.
