Grown-up Marriage

What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married

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Although marriage is for grown-ups, very few of us are grown up when we marry. Here, the bestselling author of Suddenly Sixty and Necessary Losses presents her life-affirming perspective on the joys, heartaches, difficulties, and possibilities of a grown-up marriage -- and no, that's not an oxymoron!
Featuring interviews with married women and men, the findings of couples therapists, the truths offered by literature and movies, and a bemused exploration of her own marriage, Judith Viorst illuminates the issues couples struggle with from "I do" through "till death do us part." Examining marital rivalry, marital manners, marital sex (extramarital, too), marital fighting and apologies, what kids do for (and to) marriage, and the boredom and bliss of everyday married life, Viorst leaves no marital stone unturned. From the early years when we wonder "Who is this person?" and "What am I doing here?" to the realities of divorce, remarriage, and growing older (and old) together, Viorst offers insights and advice with honesty, humanity, and humor -- all the while recognizing how tough it is to be married and, when it works, how very precious it can be.
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Book details:
  • Free Press | 
  • 304 pages | 
  • ISBN 9780743210812 | 
  • February 2004
$19.99 List Price
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Chapter One: Why We Get Married


The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.
-- Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave


Most of the women of my generation probably married too young to have grown acquainted with the dread of loneliness. Most of us were taught, however, before we left our teens the dread of unmarriedness. One of my aunts, who remarkably got a Ph.D. in physics at a time when most of her peers went no further than high school, was perceived by my mother and father and other relatives as our family's tragic failure because she never achieved a husband and kids....

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