Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up

140 Pages·2012·0.56 MB·English

by  Harriet Lerner

MARRIAGE RULES
BY THE AUTHOR
Marriage Rules
The Dance of Fear
The Dance of Connection
The Mother Dance
Life Preservers
The Dance of Deception
The Dance of Intimacy
The Dance of Anger
Women in Therapy
Franny B. Kranny, There’s a Bird in Your Hair!
(with Susan Goldhor) What’s So Terrible About Swallowing an Apple Seed?
(with Susan Goldhor)
MARRIAGE RULES
A Manual for the Married
and the Coupled Up
HARRIET
LERNER, PH.D.
Gotham Books
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Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, January 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © 2012 by Harriet Lerner
All rights reserved
Gotham Books and the skyscraper logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Lerner, Harriet Goldhor.
Marriage rules : a manual for the married and the coupled up / Harriet Lerner.
p. cm.
EISBN: 9781101554210
1. Married people—Psychology. 2. Couples—Psychology. 3. Marriage—Psychological aspects. 4. Marital
quality. I. Title.
HQ734.L394 2012
306.872—dc23
2011032928
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Adobe Garamond Pro
Designed by Spring Hoteling
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
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To Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick,
brilliant pioneers in the field of family theory and therapy
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION
It Shouldn’t Be That Complicated
ONE
Warm Things Up
TWO
Dial Down the Criticism
THREE
Overcome Your L.D.D.
(Listening Deficit Disorder)
FOUR
Call Off the Chase:
How to Connect with a Distant Partner
FIVE
Fight Fair!
SIX
Forget About Normal Sex
SEVEN
Kid Shock:
Keep Your Bearings After Children Arrive
EIGHT
Know Your Bottom Line
NINE
Help Your Marriage Survive Stepkids
TEN
Your First Family:
The Royal Road to a Remarkable Marriage
EPILOGUE
I Promise You This
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is inspired by Michael Pollan’s slender volume about healthful eating
called Food Rules, an eater’s guide meant to bring much-needed simplicity to
our daily decisions about food. “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color
of the milk,” Pollan advises, and “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother
wouldn’t recognize as food.” His rules are all one needs to know to eat wisely
and well. Eating, Pollan demonstrates, doesn’t have to be so complicated.
Neither does marriage, I thought to myself while thumbing through his book.
Why not a book about marriage (defined loosely as couples in a long-term
commitment) for those who want just the rules, without the theory behind them?
Admittedly, coupling up is more complicated than eating, but I decided it
wouldn’t be all that difficult to lay out one hundred concise rules that make a
relationship work, or at least give it the best chance of succeeding.
I am grateful to Michael Pollan for reminding me that keeping things simple is
often the best way to teach the most complicated things.
INTRODUCTION
IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT COMPLICATED
People spend their hard-earned money seeking the advice of relationship
experts when they already know what they need to do to have a good marriage—
or at least a better one. I was recently reminded of this fact when listening to the
marriage vows that two young people said out loud to each other in front of their
community of family and friends.
They said in turn:
I promise to always treat you with kindness and respect.
I promise to be faithful, honest, and fair.
I promise to listen carefully to what you are saying.
I promise to apologize when I am wrong and to repair any harm I have done.
I promise to cook and clean for you.
I promise to be your partner and best friend in the best and worst of times.
I promise to bring my best self into our relationship.
I promise to live these promises as a daily practice.
How do you think this couple came up with their shared promises? Did they
plow through the countless self-help books and blogs about the “how-tos” of a
successful relationship? Did they consult the work of psychologists and marriage
counselors and study the latest research on marital failure and success?
Of course not. They consulted their own hearts, their core values, their life
experience, and the Golden Rule. By the time we’re old enough to choose a life
partner, we’ve observed a number of marriages and have a pretty good idea
about what makes things better and worse. We know it’s usually a good idea to
treat the other person as we’d like to be treated.
If this couple lives their promises as a daily practice (even with a large margin
of error), their marriage will do very well, indeed. Need the experts say more?
OK, IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE
With marriage having a 50 percent no-go rate, it’s obvious that people don’t
follow their promises, or their best thinking, just like people don’t eat healthfully
even when they know what’s good for them. Paradoxically, it’s in our most
enduring and important relationships that we’re least likely to be our most