Shankar Vedantam

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Every generation has its power couples.

The novelist Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas were arguably one such couple.

In the early part of the 20th century, their Paris apartment was the center of a thriving literary and artistic scene, attracting the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Pablo Picasso.

But that doesn't mean everything was perfect between them.

Their relationship hit a rough patch when Alice learned that Gertrude had had a love affair before she met Alice.

The writer Francesca Wade describes this revelation in her book, Gertrude Stein and Afterlife.

She writes, In response, Alice later told an interviewer she tormented Gertrude for a year and a half.

She destroyed all of the letters Gertrude's former lover had sent to her.

And on a trip to the U.S., she tried to keep Gertrude's American friends from seeing her.

Eventually, Gertrude Stein had to tell her partner that if she didn't stop, their relationship was over.

Alice's choice?

Either make peace with her partner's past, or split up.

She didn't have to like that Gertrude had loved someone else, but she had to accept it.

Accepting our partners isn't always easy, as Alice B. Toklas discovered.

For many of us, the impulse to alter things we dislike about our partners is irresistible.

But as the psychologist James Cordova discussed with us in a series of recent Hidden Brain episodes, acceptance is essential to unlocking deeper, more meaningful connections.

If you missed those episodes, you can find them in this podcast feed.