Marriage 3.0

I’m a word nerd. My husband bought me a 20-volume unabridged Oxford English Dictionary as a Valentine’s Day present one year. It was the first Valentine’s gift that I took seriously. Chocolates leave my stony, unromantic heart cold, but the famed “last word on words” dictionary—now this was ... Read More

This is a polemic:  Access to birth control isn’t really about my “health.” It’s not principally about the management of ovarian cysts or the regulation of periods. Birth control isn’t about my health unless by health you mean, my capacity to get it on, to have a happy, joyous sex life that ... Read More

Casablanca, kissing, the giddy exchange of bodily fluids, the pressing of the flesh—It’s all so 20th century. Today there doesn’t need to be sex in your sex anymore. The “virtual,” cyber, or mental affair, variously named, is one of those new frontiers of online social media and the Internet ... Read More

The “slippery slope” is a popular argument in the same-sex marriage debate. Where do you draw the line, opponents argue? If you start allowing marriage between people of the same sex, then why not require that the law recognize threesomes, group marriage, incest, beastiality, and polygamy? Can ... Read More

Now this is what I call post-romantic. It begins with a fascinating vanguard of “neuromarketing” researchers. These scientist-marketers hook up subjects (consumers) to new biometric technologies such as EEG headsets that read brain waves and eye movements simultaneously; functional MRIs that ... Read More

There’s a booming genre in wee books of things to see or do “before you die.” I don’t read these books, but Australian hospice nurse Bronnie Ware’s recently-published book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, did catch my attention. Ware found that her patients’ regrets weren’t about things done ... Read More

[Readers: here's a largely non-relationship column, for a change of pace...] My cell phone is an idiot. It’s a straight-up, dingbat dumb-ass. It can’t do anything, except make phone calls, and has no competency to tell me where I am, why I am there, how I got there, or what I should do, think ... Read More

You’ve forgiven an affair. You’ve put up with violations of the marriage’s budget. You’ve been bored, irked, and ignored. But if he mentions picking up a goddamned wet towel off the floor one more time, you’re out of there. That’s the gist of recent research about the real “marriage killer ... Read More

Charles Murray wrote a piece on economic inequality and cultural factors that contribute to it in the Wall Street Journal . He vividly describes inequalities between two groups of white Americans, and notes that the poor and working classes have turned away from institutions like marriage. Murray ... Read More

The last thing I ever wanted to do was to write a word about Newt Gingrich’s sex life. But, alas, ABC’s “blockbuster” interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne, airing tonight on Nightline, in which she alleges that Newt asked her for an “open marriage" puts Newt in my wheelhouse. I spend chapters in ... Read More

In Marriage Confidential I talk about “workhorse wives” with Tom Sawyer husbands. In these marriages, the husband is the dream-chaser and the wife is the exhausted breadwinner who underwrites his dream. For example, she’s a disgruntled lawyer, and he’s writing the great American novel. She’s an ... Read More

I recently participated in a “relationship summit” on break ups. I don’t know how wise or helpful I was. When it comes to break-up and heartache recovery, I’m not sure that anyone’s improved appreciably on the old strategy of “tears, shots of tequila, sleeping on your friend’s ratty sofa, and hours ... Read More

Mistresses and Lovers for Dummies, Rule #3:   If you want an open marriage, then make sure to upload the most updated, de-bugged version of the software, and not the 1970s edition.   If you’re an aspiring idea, one of the worst things that can befall you is that people say you sound like ... Read More

A man and woman have been married for over a decade. The wife seems happy, and she feels happy, or happy enough, in her marriage. The husband seems happy. He seems that way to outsiders and to his wife, and there hasn’t been conversation or behavior to make her suspect otherwise. Daily life is ... Read More

In my experience it’s easier to change a home design than to change your heart, or your feelings. Take the case of “staying together for the children,” a familiar marital philosophy that seems to be enjoying a resurgence. Spouses who’ve internalized a strong sense of responsibility for co-parenting ... Read More