Penny's and Robbie's Prospects in a Reconciliation -- Part 2

This article is part of a series about the relationship of Robbie Gould and Penny Johnson. The previous articles were:

Why Penny and Robbie Risked Pregnancy, Part 1

Why Penny and Robbie Risked Pregnancy, Part 2

The Movie's Violators of Going-Steady Rules

Robbie's View of Penny as His Potential Wife

"Going Steady" versus "Going Slumming"

Robbie Gould's Denial of Paternity

Penny's and Robbie's Prospects in Paternity Trial

Penny's Loss of Hope About Robbie

Penny's and Robbie's Prospects in a Reconciliation -- Part 1

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While thinking about Penny Johnson's and Robbie Gould's prospects in a reconciliation, we should evaluate the effect of Robbie's "rebound relationships" with two women:

1) Lisa Houseman

2) Vivian Pressman

Robbie became intimately involved with those two women in rebound relationships after he broke up with Penny. Those relationships might complicate Robbie's subsequent efforts to reconcile with Penny.

* Perhaps he had enjoyed the sexual variety and wanted to continue it.

* Perhaps he missed Lisa or Vivian while reconciling with Penny.

* Perhaps Penny feared that Robbie would continue seeing Lisa or Vivian.

Robbie's rebound relationships might have ruined any possibility of his reconciling with Penny.

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In general, how do rebound relationships affect reconciliation efforts?

The website Science of Relationships includes a useful article titled After The Rebound ... What Next? and written by  Dr. Samantha Joel, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Utah. She summarizes her academic focus as follows:

I study how people make decisions about their romantic relationships. For example, what sort of factors do people take into consideration when they try to decide whether to pursue a potential date, invest in a new relationship, or break up with a romantic partner?

In my research, I draw from the field of judgment and decision making to better understand ways in which relationship decisions are similar to other types of decisions, as well as ways in which they might be unique.

In her article, Dr. Joel responds to reader who has asked:

How likely is it for two people who were once lovers to get back together, particularly after seeing/being with other people?

The reader is anonymous, but Penny and Robbie themselves might have asked the same question in regard to their own situation. Dr. Joel responded that a rebound relationships sometimes help reconciliations succeed. Her response includes the following passages (emphasis added).

... If the new relationship is not particularly rewarding, then the rebound relationship can backfire. Recent research conducted by my colleague Stephanie Spielmann (and me and our collaborators) indicated that unrewarding relationships can actually lead people to feel more attached to their ex-partners, rather than less. ...

... People usually break up for a reason, and so the chances of getting back together depend on whether or not the issues that led to the breakup have been resolved. .... In terms of how [rebound] dating experiences since the breakup might play a role, it really depends on how rewarding those dating experiences were.

* New rewarding dating experiences can help to lower attachment to an ex-partner, making it less likely that the person will want to get back with their ex.

* On the other hand, bad dates can indeed motivate people to go back to their exes.

For example, in the research with the on-again/off-again couples, dating experiences during “off” periods was one of the more common reasons people gave for wanting to give their ex another try. It seems that after people break up, unrewarding dating experiences can make them feel like their other dating options aren’t as good as they thought, making their exes seem more appealing by comparison.

.... When people fail to connect with new partners, it can make them really long for the familiarity of their exes, particularly if they found their exes to be deeply rewarding in the past. Under these circumstances, people sometimes do decide to give their old flame another go (assuming that the ex is also willing). ....

In other words, Robbie's ultimately unsatisfactory rebound relationships with Lisa and Vivian might cause him to try to reconcile with Penny.

Some rebound relationships cause reconciliations

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Robbie's rebound relationship with Lisa lasted less than two weeks -- from about August 10, when the Houseman family arrived, until about August 23, when they argued about sex at the golf course. On the following day, August 24, Baby Houseman threatened to get Robbie fired if he continued to meet with Lisa.

During their relationship, Robbie and Lisa progressed sexually only to second base with each other. She allowed him to touch her bare breasts, but she refused to begin touching his penis, even through his pants.

In contrast, Robbie had advanced to home base with Penny, who allowed him to even insert his bare penis into her vagina if she figured that she was in an infertile time of her menstrual cycle.

Lisa's big advantage over Penny was supposed to be her better education and culture. Whereas Penny had dropped out of high school and been kicked out of her home when she was 16 years old, Lisa was being raised in an intellectual family with a doctor father.

However, when Robbie tried to explain the Domino Theory to Lisa, she remained totally confused. When he lent Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead to Lisa, she read no more of it than Penny read.

Robbie learned from his rebound relationship with Lisa that he might be happier if he reconciled with Penny.

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Robbie's rebound relationship with Vivian lasted only a few days, but he learned some lessons from it.

As an older, vivacious woman, Vivian was a knowledgeable, interesting and witty conversationalist. Although she too had never read The Fountainhead, she was old enough to have watched the 1949 movie based on the novel. Vivian remembered the movie surprisingly well, and Robbie really enjoyed her description and evaluation of the movie.

Vivian was an enthusiastic lover, and did not expect Robbie to follow any going-steady rules in order to advance to home base with her within a couple of days.

The problem with Vivian was that Robbie never could feel comfortable with her. She was older than him and was married, and so he feared being seen with her. She was sexually promiscuous, and so he feared catching a venereal disease from her.

Robbie and Vivian were in different stages of their lives. He was looking forward to beginning a medical career and a family, whereas she was looking forward to traveling and relaxing in her retirement years.

Robbie learned also from his rebound relationship with Vivian that he might be happier if he reconciled with Penny.

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Signs that Robbie's rebound relationships were failing:

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Why Robbie will go back to Penny:

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Soon Robbie would begin attending classes at Yale Medical School. He would be extraordinarily busy for many years to come.

The Reddit website has a discussion thread about why doctors divorce. In that thread, one doctor advised young men going into busy medical professions to select their future wives before they become too busy. Before they begin medical school, they still have the free time and casual opportunities to get to know a variety of women and to select a fitting mate. As if advising Robbie personally, the doctor wrote:

.... I have a handful of close friends from medical school who are married or about to get married. I know their relationships reasonably well and they seem like the types of couples who will go the distance.

Then, I have other med school friends who can't seem to sustain a relationship for any significant period of time. Totally bi-modal distribution.

So, what do the successful couples have in common? They all met before medical school when they had free time to meet literally thousands of new people and choose the one who fit best with them. They capitalized on their time out in planet Earth, filled with sunlight and an endless rotation of humans to interact with. Ah, makes me feel nostalgic just talking about it.

On the other hand, anybody who's left single by medical school seems to ultimately end up with another doctor. It's long been the belief that medical professionals date one another because of a mutual "understanding" of high demands in terms of emotions and time. I'm thinking there's a much more simple explanation- we're the only human contact we get. We're stuck at the hospital during our prime "go out and meet people" years. ...

Due to the hours we work, we have no other choice than to say, "You're practical" instead of, "You're perfect". .... It's not that we're unhappy or inattentive toward our partners, it's that we don't even get a fair shake at choosing the right partner to begin with. Our relationships are doomed before they begin. ...

Another doctor followed up that comment by telling his own experience:

... I have dated almost exclusively in the field (including premed, through med students) and all of those relationships failed exactly because there was too much exposure to medicine/science - we just had nothing else to talk about, and it often became a competition (I realize that's also an aspect of our personalities, but it was still part of what drove us apart).

I'm with someone now who is in a completely different field (who honestly works just as many hours as I do) and we can't get enough of telling each other about the joys and challenges of our respective jobs. It keeps the relationship fresh because I feel like I am constantly learning from her, and vice versa.

You also can't forget the famous two-body problem - a large portion of doctor-doctor couples end up long distance for at least part of their relationships, which is usually a relationship killer for all but the strongest couples.

In these two doctors' observations are correct, then Dr. Robbie Gould's marriage  with Penny will be extra happy because 1) he selected her while he had the free time and many options to pick a wife who is his best match, and 2) Penny is not employed in a medical business.

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The fact that Penny was pregnant while she and Robbie were trying to reconcile certainly would cause anxiety in both of them. If Robbie was going to marry Penny mostly because her pregnancy obligated him to do so, then their marriage would be troubled with suspicions, regrets and resentments.

Such marriages commonly are called "shotgun marriages", although they are called midpregnancy marriages in sociology.

How the marriage of Penny and Robbie
might be perceived by their acquaintances

Keep in mind, though, that midpregnancy marriages were generally accepted and expected in 1963. If the woman got pregnant, then the couple was supposed to get married, and that's all there was to it. They got married, raised the child, stayed married, and mostly laughed about it. That was the social convention that Robbie and Penny grew up in.

According to a recent sociological study, midpregnancy marriages still turn out to be surprisingly stable. The study was summarized in a 2016 article titled Shotgun Marriages Are on the Rise — And in Surprising Places. The article includes the following passage:

After 10 years of marriage:

-- 30 percent of white couples who had a shotgun wedding were divorced

-- 19 percent of white couples who wed prior to conception were divorced

Yes, indeed, the pregnancy did increase the probability that Penny and Robbie would divorce within ten years. However, 70% of the couples WERE NOT DIVORCED after ten years.

Therefore, if Penny and Robbie did reconcile and marry while she was pregnant, their marriage probably would last for at least ten years. That consideration was a rather good reason for them to give it a try and expect to succeed.

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Penny is pregnant with Robbie's baby.

Of course, Penny wants Robbie to come back to her and to marry her!!!

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In my following, concluding article in this series, I will evaluate the prospects for Penny and Robbie maintaining a loving and happy marriage for the rest of their lives.