US ambassador: My wife and I go to couples therapy
Diplomacy is vital in marriage too, he says
eMpATHY, patience and honesty are key skills for any foreign ambassador who wants to avoid an international conflict.
But they can also be applied much closer to home, as America’s ambassador to Britain revealed yesterday.
Matthew Barzun, 45, revealed he and his heiress wife have regular couples therapy, saying that the sessions focusing on their marriage mirrored his vision of diplomacy.
‘My wife and i are in couples therapy,’ he told Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s desert island discs. ‘She’s a therapist herself and i’m the son of a therapist.
‘it is really important to think about what you say and to be honest. You know, that’s between two people, and not two countries. But i think the same things apply.’
it is not the first time Mr Barzun – a Kentucky businessman who helped fund Barack Obama’s first run for the presidency – has used the language of personal relationships to describe dealings between nations.
earlier this year he characterised Britain’s relationship with the US as a ‘lasting love story’, saying the rest of the world was ‘crying out’ for such a partnership.
‘it is our job to protect it and to propagate it,’ he added.
Although he did not divulge what he and his wife discuss in their sessions, he told the programme he had been inspired in both his professional and private lives by how his boss conducts himself.
He said: ‘Obama is very thoughtful about what he says, and this is what friends should do to each other, is be honest.’ Mr Barzun married Brooke Brown, 44, heiress to the Brown-Forman distilling empire which includes brands such as Jack daniel’s whiskey, in 1999.
in three years in London the couple – who have three children – have hosted acts such as ed Sheeran at their official residence, Winfield House, also putting on their wellies for a trip to glastonbury Festival.
Last year he described how his wife had bought a copper beech sapling for their 15th wedding anniversary, which they had planted in the garden.
He told desert island discs how on visits to schools he asks sixth-formers to write a word or draw a picture of something that concerns or confuses them about the US.
‘The biggest single word is “guns” for confusion, and nothing [else] really comes close,’ he said. ‘Then you have police brutality, racism, healthcare and, increasingly over the last few months, donald Trump.’
Asked to write something that inspired them about America, he said opportunity, food, freedom and president Obama were common responses.
He added that he was a fan of the British sense of humour but that our tendency towards understatement had been hard to adjust to.
He said: ‘i grew up on Monty python but never understood Benny Hill... The Thick Of it is one of my favourite shows of all time. But the hardest thing to adjust to has been British understatement. it’s hard as a diplomat because the American tendency is to pile on the praise.’
in May Mr Barzun delivered a lecture marking the 15th anniversary of the Rothermere American institute at the University of Oxford.
‘Think about what you say’