Grown Up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know about Being Married

In a grown-up marriage we've learned to forgive and forget. Well, maybe not forget.

In a grown-up marriage we do not keep score -- at least, not out loud.

Although marriage is for grown-ups, very few of us are grown up when we marry. What is a grown-up marriage? Can we achieve one? Here, from the bestselling author of "Suddenly Sixty" and "Necessary Losses" comes her best ever -- a life-affirming book on the difficulties and possibilities of being well and enduringly wed.

For years, hundreds of thousands of readers have enjoyed Judith Viorst's poetry and prose on the challenging, sometimes hilarious subject of marriage. Now, in this thought-provoking new book, she helps married couples of every age and stage figure out how they might create a grown-up marriage.

Blending interviews of married women and men with the findings of couples therapists, the truths offered by literature and the movies, and a bemused exploration of her own marriage, Viorst illuminates the issues couples struggle with from "I do" to "till death do us part." She examines marital rivalry, marital manners, marital sex (not always with the person to whom we're married), fighting and apologies, and the boredom and the bliss of ordinary everyday married life. All aspects of marriage -- from the early years when we wonder "Who is this person?" and "What am I doing here?" to divorcing or almost divorcing, marrying again, growing older and old together -- are explored with honesty, humanity, and humor, with a rueful recognition of how tough it is to be married and -- if we can make it -- how precious it is.

Viorst's insights into what it takes to staymarried -- a commitment to preserve and defend our marriage against all attacks, including our own; the recognition that courtesy and charm, like charity, begin at home; the honoring of each other's good intentions and good will, even when we don't get what we need; the adaptations and compromises; the just plain dumb luck and the hard, hard work -- have something to offer everyone, even the most abidingly married among us. Fascinating, funny, and perceptive, Viorst's "Grown-up Marriage" will enrich the lives of all her readers.

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