Did Al Gore's Success Kill His Marriage?

June 3, 2010 — -- News of the breakup of the 40-year marriage of former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, has left many speculating about what caused the split, and still more wondering whether any marriage is safe.

"Suddenly our image of marriages that can work has crashed," said Marion Solomon, a psychologist in Los Angeles. "We have an idea that there are some people that are happy. That it is possible to be happily married in the public eye. ... If they're getting a divorce, can any marriage work?"

The odds are actually pretty good for a couple who tied the knot around 1970, when the Gores were married. Only about 15 percent of marriages dating to that time had broken up after 15 years, said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. And with every anniversary, the risk of divorce declines.

The Gores' marriage spanned four decades, in which they raised four children and weathered crises that included a 1989 car accident that nearly killed their son, Albert Gore III, an event that reportedly brought on Tipper Gore's bout with major depression.

And they not only survived decades lived on the political stage, but they seemed to thrive there. Their passionate kiss at the 2000 Democratic Convention left a lasting and much-discussed impression.

While campaigning for president, Al Gore said in an interview that his wife was "someone I've loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior prom."

Together they wrote "Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family," published in 2003. "For us, as for most Americans," they wrote, "family is our bedrock, and we believe the strength of the American family is the nation's bedrock."

So what went wrong for the Gores?

As of yet, there's been nary a rumor of any perfidy. And several people close to the family have said they don't expect any tales to emerge.

Some have speculated that Al Gore's new fame as the world's most well-known environmentalist, with his Oscar-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and his Nobel Prize, may have something to do with it.