夫妻之道——共同爱好成就永恒爱情

When one partner is outside his or her comfort zone, arguments can heat up quickly. This person might be terrified─and, really, is there anyone less empathetic than a spouse who doesn't share your sense of danger? 'The other person feels inept and less-than,' Dr. Kirschner says. 'This kind of negative thinking spills into conflict and distance in the relationship.'
当一方处于他或她的舒适区外时，争吵很快就会升温。他或她可能会觉得惊恐──确实如此，当你的配偶不能分担你的危机感时，世上还有比这位伴侣更不善解人意的人吗？科斯切纳说：“另一方则会认为自己无能为力。这种负面想法会渗透到两者关系中，造成冲突和距离。”

Luckily, there's an easy solution: Applause. The proficient partner needs to heap praise on the newbie for his or her effort. ('What a fantastic partner you are to come along. I really appreciate it.') The newbie, meanwhile, needs to amp up the admiration for the proficient partner's skill. ('The way you skied that black diamond was amazing!')
幸运地是，有一种简便易行的解决办法：夸奖。身为老手的这一方需要向新手那方所付出的努力大加赞赏。（“你是多么棒的一个搭档啊，我很感激你的参与和陪伴。”）与此同时，新手这边则需加倍夸赞老手娴熟的技能。（“你用黑钻滑板滑雪的样子太惊艳了！”）

'Those words mean a lot,' Dr. Kirschner says. 'Men, because they are so achievement-oriented, seem to respond to them even more than women.' There's no predicting, though, whether men or women are better at being the newbie.
基施纳说：“那些话非常有意义，因为它们是成就导向型语言，所以男性对它们的反应似乎比女性更多。”尽管如此，目前还没有预测说到底是男性还是女性在新手阶段会表现得更好。

Stanley Bernstein, a 56-year-old securities litigator living in New Rochelle, N.Y., did something drastic a few years ago to spend more time with his wife. He laced up a pair of ice skates.
为了多陪陪妻子，现居纽约州新罗谢尔市(New Rochelle)、今年56岁的证券诉讼律师斯坦利•伯恩斯坦(Stanley Bernstein)曾在几年前做了一些极端的事。他穿上了一双溜冰鞋。

Vivian Bernstein, an interior designer in her late 40s, had taken up figure skating as an adult and was skating five days a week. Mr. Bernstein thought he might have skated once when he was 10. 'We were taking separate but equal vacations,' Mr. Bernstein says. 'She would skate, and I would play golf.' He asked his wife to golf with him. She gave him a pair of skates.
室内设计师维维安•伯恩斯坦(Vivian Bernstein)在40多岁时以成人学员的身份开始学习花样滑冰，她一周有五天会去滑冰。而斯坦利记得自己好像在10岁的时候曾滑过一次冰。他说：“我们过去都是各自分开休假，但假期性质差不多。她会去滑冰，而我去打高尔夫球。”斯坦利曾要妻子和他一道去打高尔夫，妻子却回赠了他一双溜冰鞋。

Mr. Bernstein admitted he was scared. Ms. Bernstein took him to a rink where he would be unlikely to see anyone he knew. She taught him to 'walk like a duck' with a side-to-side glide. He was practicing in a corner of the rink─'crouched down, my heart racing, petrified of falling,' he recalls─and a 10-year-old boy skated up and said, 'Hey, Mr. Bernstein. You wanna race?' Behind him was his snickering father, an attorney Mr. Bernstein knows from a rival firm
斯坦利承认自己当时被吓到了。维维安带他去了一家室内溜冰场──他不太可能在那里碰到任何熟人。维维安教他要“像鸭子一样走路”，左边滑一下、右边滑一下。斯坦利便躲到滑冰场的角落里去练习──他回忆说：“我蹲了下来，我的心脏狂跳，因为害怕摔倒而僵在那里。”──然后有一个10岁的男孩儿朝他滑来说： “嘿，伯恩斯坦先生，你想跟我比试一下吗？”站在男孩儿身后的是他窃笑的父亲──斯坦利对手公司的一位律师，斯坦利认识他。

Mr. Bernstein stuck with it, and now the couple travels to national competitions, goes on Saturday night skate dates and takes their young grandchildren to the rink. 'I'm never going to play for the Rangers, but it's a fun thing to do together,' Mr. Bernstein says. 'It keeps things from getting boring,' Ms. Bernstein says.
斯坦利还是坚持了下来，现在他们夫妇二人前往各地参加国家级的比赛，共赴周六晚间的滑冰会，还会带上年幼的孙子孙女去滑冰场。斯坦利说：“我这一辈子也不可能为纽约巡游者冰球队(Rangers)效力，但和维维安一起去滑冰还是挺有意思的。”维维安则说：“这样事情就不至于变得无聊了。”

Mr. Nelson, meanwhile, read the beekeeping book. 'I thought, maybe this isn't so bad,' says the 49-year-old university purchasing agent in Orem, Utah. He agreed to go with his wife to a beekeepers meeting, then to classes. Three years ago, they bought two hives, two bee suits and 24,000 honeybees.
而另一边，犹他州奥勒姆市的一位大学采购代理、现年49岁的纳尔逊先生正在读着养蜂的书。他说：“我觉得，可能这也没那么糟吧。”他同意和妻子一道去参加一次养蜂人大会，然后再去上课。三年前，他们买下了两个蜂房、两套养蜂服和24,000只蜜蜂。

On the way home from the bee distributor, with the honeybees buzzing in boxes in the back of their station wagon, Ms. Nelson, a 49-year-old author and professor of education and behavioral science, felt elated. Her husband was sweating and planning his escape route. 'I thought I'd made a big mistake,' he says. But after they'd set up the hives, Mr. Nelson watched the bees fly in and out and was amazed at what the two had accomplished.
在从蜜蜂经销商那儿往家走的路上，纳尔逊夫妇用旅行车后备箱载了两厢嗡嗡叫的蜜蜂。49岁的作家、教育和行为科学教授纳尔逊太太当时觉得很兴奋。她的丈夫却出了一身冷汗，正计划盘算着自己的逃跑路线。他说：“当时我就觉得自己犯了一个大错。”但当他们把蜂房都安置好以后，纳尔逊先生看着那些蜜蜂飞进飞出，惊叹于自己和妻子的成果。

The first time they extracted honey, the bees swarmed them and somehow got inside Mr. Nelson's pants. He promptly stripped them off, neighbors be damned.
在纳尔逊夫妇第一次采蜂蜜时，那些蜜蜂爬满了他们的全身，还不知怎地钻进了纳尔逊先生的裤子。他立马脱掉了裤子，邻居们都看呆了。

Now, though, the couple is a beekeeping team, dividing responsibilities and communicating carefully about who will do which tasks.
而现在，夫妻二人则形成了一个养蜂小组，他们分工明确、各司其职，两人还就谁做什么进行了认真的交流。

'If you create fun, enriching experiences together, you reinvent yourself and your marriage,' Ms. Nelson says. 'You look at your partner in awe.'
纳尔逊太太说：“如果你们共同创造丰富有趣的经历，你们就重塑了自我，也重新谱写了你们的婚姻。在注视自己伴侣的时候，你们就会心生敬意。”