Grown-up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married

In Grown-Up Marriage, bestselling author Judith Viorst uses her abundant gifts to consider how marriage pulls, cajoles, and commands us to grow up. By viewing marriage "as a problem we have to solve again and again," Viorst offers a fresh view of both the mirages of marriage and how readers can adjust their expectations to create an enduring state of the union. Complacency, warns Viorst, is the bind that unties. "If we imagine that marriage is where we can burp, bitch, snicker and snipe day after day without paying a price, we are wrong." She crafts a smart synthesis of decades of psychological research, case studies, and examples drawn from popular culture. Viorst rounds up the usual suspects--the routines that kill marriage, the outlaw in-laws, the mommy-daddy trap--and the unusual ones, including marital sibling rivalry and why second marriages often fail. Each subject is illuminated with nuanced, mirthful details about creating a mature marriage. Her insights are sometimes diluted with too many expert quotes or her own poetry. Still, her shrewd observations will make this book required reading before your next anniversary. --Barbara Mackoff