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Marriageology: The Art and Science of Staying Together Hardcover – May 21, 2019

by Belinda Luscombe (Author)

4.5 184 ratings

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A smart and concise guide to staying together that draws on scientific findings, expert advice, and years in the marital trenches to explain why marriage is better for your health, your finances, your kids, and your happiness

Like you, probably, Belinda Luscombe would rather have had her eyes put out than read a book about marriage; they all seemed full of advice that was obvious, useless, or bad. Plus they were boring. But after covering the relationship beat for Time magazine for ten years, she realized there was a surprisingly upbeat and little-known story to tell about the benefits of staying together for the long haul. Casting a witty, candid, and probing eye on the latest behavioral science, Luscombe has written a fresh and persuasive report on the state of our unions, how they’ve changed from the marriages of our parents’ era, and what those changes mean for the happiness of this most intimate and important of our relationships.

In Marriageology Luscombe examines the six major fault lines that can fracture contemporary marriages, also known as the F-words: familiarity, fighting, finances, family, fooling around, and finding help. She presents facts, debunks myths, and provides a fascinating mix of research, anecdotes, and wisdom from a wide range of approaches—from how properly dividing up chores can result in a better sex life to the benefits of fighting with your spouse (though not in the car) to whether or not to tell your partner that you lost $70,000. (The last one is from firsthand experience.)

Marriageology offers simple, actionable, maybe even borderline fun techniques and tips to try, whether the relationship in question is about to conk out or just needs a little grease and an oil change. The best news of all is that sticking together is easier than it looks.

Praise for Marriageology

“Drawn from what she learned covering the relationship beat for Time, Luscombe’s how-not-to-split-up manual is witty and wise.”—People

“People are still getting married, and this book is here to help. . . . A warm and companionable volume . . . [Luscombe has a] wry touch, a gift for scene-setting, and an endearingly even temper.”—The New Yorker

“Few things are more important than the quality of our relationships—and especially the one we build with our life partners. Belinda Luscombe has written a smart and funny book to help anyone work toward a stronger and more fulfilling marriage.”—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn and OptionB

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Random House
Publication date

May 21, 2019
Dimensions

5.18 x 0.96 x 7.75 inches
ISBN-10

0399592369
ISBN-13

978-0399592362
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From the Publisher

Marriageology: The Art and Science of Staying Together

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A delightful new book, which draws on years of collecting data, notingpatterns, poring over peer-reviewed journal articles and interviewingcouples counselors, sex therapists, financial advisers, sociology and psychology professors, consumer behavior experts and regular ol' married folks....the resulting book is a hoot. And helpful." - Chicago Tribune

"A vibrant and engrossing look at marriage that combines her own experiences with current research and commentary by experts...Luscombe delivers a satisfying mix of humorous anecdotes (she and herhusband frequently battle over the use of butter), sage advice (learn to forgive and say thank you), and research (stats reveal that married couples are healthier and wealthier than their unmarried counterparts)." -Publishers Weekly

Winner of the Self Help: Relationships category of the 2020 International Book Awards.

About the Author

Belinda Luscombe is an award-winning Time magazine journalist and essayist. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and Vogue. She won the Council on Contemporary Families Media Award for her reporting on marriage. She and her husband have been realizing how deeply unsuitable they are for each other but still figuring it out somehow for almost thirty years, often while being laughed at by their two children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Familiarity

My husband, Jeremy, does this thing with envelopes. He always asks if we have any, even though I’ve shown him where they are a hundred times. They’re on the shelf, with the other stationery items, near the pens, just above the photographs of our children that we have duplicates of but still can’t throw out and menus that we also haven’t thrown out. They’ve been kept there for decades, in skinny ledges that resemble mail slots. A complete stranger to our home, casting around the room, would immediately detect that this was the ideal envelope-holding situation. Doesn’t matter. Every time my spouse needs to mail something, he says, “Do we have any envelopes?”

On the surface, it seems such an innocent question, and the answer so easy. “Yes, sweetheart. They’re on the shelf, near the pens.” But it makes me want to put stones in my pocket and walk into the ocean. Or even better, take them out and throw them at him.

Everything about his inquiry enrages and depresses me. Why can’t he learn where they are? Why is his attention so much more precious than mine that I have to answer this every time? His whole passive-aggressive approach: “Do we have any envelopes?” is even more infuriating. He’s not asking “Could you get me an envelope?” That would mean facing up to the fact that he has never bothered to learn a basic housekeeping fact. That would mean acknowledging that he is treating his spouse like his personal assistant. That would mean clearly spelling out that what he really wants is for me to get him an envelope.

“Do we have any envelopes?” is what my spouse says. What I hear is “Whatever I’m doing right now is vital, even if it’s just random postage tasks. You, on the other hand, can’t possibly be doing anything worthwhile. Bringing me the office supplies that are in the shelves behind me as I speak if I would just turn around and look is the kind of trivial scutwork right in line with your abilities.”

How did this happen? I love this man. I have loved this man for years. I’ve never met anyone like him. He makes beautiful things, whether they are buildings or meals or children or adventures. He’s handsome and strong and great in bed. He’s patient and stoic. He makes up hilariously implausible theories about phenomena with very normal explanations and persists in pushing them in the face of overwhelming evidence. We have had two and a half decades of mostly happy coexistence. I’d be lost without him. So why does a small imperfection such as this set me off?

Because of familiarity. Familiarity is what you have when all the new relationship excitement has burned away like the boosters on a rocket and you’ve moved into an orbit in which your spouse rarely surprises you. It’s what comes after the deep late-night talks about your hopes and desires have been replaced by negotiations on who is picking up the kids today. It’s when a relationship is more commute than adventure, more meal planning than dining out. Familiarity is the natural byproduct of every marriage and in many ways a wonderful thing, like broken-in shoes. But it can be a huge drag and, if not handled well, can lead beyond boredom and frustration to far darker and more destructive territory. And for couples who want to be together for the long haul in our current era, familiarity is a bigger problem than it has ever been.

BREAKING NEWS: MARRIAGE IS CHANGING

The first time I heard anyone offer marital advice, I was terrified. I was a college student in the middle of a disastrous road trip. My friends and I had been trying to get to the mountains in my brother’s ancient minibus, which usually made journeys no longer than up and down our driveway. The poor thing only lasted far enough out of town and late enough into the night that we could not call on anyone we knew for help, so while my friends waited with the vehicle I ventured into the sole open establishment (this was before mobile phones), a local bar, full of workmen at the end of their shift, to find a phone and a tow truck. When I called, the driver told me to wait there.

As I waited, nursing my soda, a patron started talking loudly to nobody in particular, but, in the way of many prophets, to all of us. “Here’s the thing about marriage,” he told the room. “You always end up going back to your f***ing wife, because no other f***ing c**t gives a s**t about you.” (For those guessing, yes, this was in Australia.)

It was a somewhat dark picture of our most celebrated romantic institution, but not completely out of character for the era. For prior generations, marriage was like my brother’s bus; it was not the ideal vehicle for their dreams, but it was what they had. And for many couples—those more committed to maintenance, or those who chose their target destinations better than I did—it worked. My mother and father, married an impressive sixty years, never expected their union to be thrilling. I’d have been less shocked to hear my parents speaking elvish than saying “I love you” to each other. Even as a child I noticed the way my mother’s voice flattened when she answered the phone—Hello!— and it turned out to be Dad: “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?” I don’t question their love or commitment, yet just before their fifty-ninth anniversary, I asked my mother the secret to a long marriage. “Tolerance,” she said, without hesitating.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House (May 21, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0399592369
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399592362
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.18 x 0.96 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #424,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #263 in Sociology of Marriage & Family (Books)
- #1,668 in Love & Romance (Books)
- #1,863 in Marriage

Customer Reviews:
4.5 184 ratings

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Belinda Luscombe

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Belinda Luscombe was born in Sydney, Australia. She trained as a teacher, but instead landed at TIME magazine in New York City, where she has been a writer for more than two decades. When people ask her what she covers there, she usually just says: "Human relations." She has also written for Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Vogue, Grazia, Marie Claire, New York and publications in Australia, the U.K. and Hong Kong, including several that no longer exist. In 2010, she won The Council on Contemporary Families Media Award for Print coverage of Family Issues.

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Customers find the book's content very valuable and easy to read. They also appreciate the sage humor and straight-to-the-point approach.

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10 customers mention "Content"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's experiences very valuable and helpful. They also appreciate the straight-to-the-point approach and reality check.

"...combined with her personal marriage experiences gave me some very valuable insights, which have already helped soften my view of my long-time..." Read more

"...Get on it! open to suggestions for what to read next... Such valuable information that I think should be taught in education systems that is..." Read more

"...With sage humor and a straight to the point approach without being preachy, this is one of the best books about relationships I have read in a long..." Read more

"...This book was a fun read but also a learning experience and a reality check. Highly recommended." Read more

5 customers mention "Readability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book spectacularly easy to read and one of the most well written books they've ever read.

"This is an excellent book. It is one of the most well written books I have ever read. Well written meaning easy to read...." Read more

"...It is easy to read and engaging. Author has good antidotes that illustrates her points well and uses her own relationship as the back drop...." Read more

"...It was informative, funny, educational, research-based and well written that is spectacularly easy to read...." Read more

"...Very easy read, but I wouldn't recommend." Read more

3 customers mention "Humor"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the humor in the book sage and straight to the point.

"...It was informative, funny, educational, research-based and well written that is spectacularly easy to read...." Read more

"...With sage humor and a straight to the point approach without being preachy, this is one of the best books about relationships I have read in a long..." Read more

"...The author is humorous. I wanted to keep on reading this book." Read more

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SandySEPA

One of the very best relationship books I have ever read.

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

The book covers a lot of subjects, and I found a some about my current concerns. Her research combined with her personal marriage experiences gave me some very valuable insights, which have already helped soften my view of my long-time boyfriend. The book also acknowedged that some issues in the relationship may never be resolved, but that by staying together, it is possible that we will outlast those issues, meaning that they can become less irritating. The final chapter gives some promising statistics about couples who stay together in spite of having considered divorce in the past. But also notes that there may be situations when divorce is best.

One of the most important things the author says, 3-4 times at various spots in the book, is that if a partner in a relationship feels unsafe, or if that partner feels that any member of the household is unsafe, then that partner (and the others) should leave the relationship ASAP. Very few books of this nature put these extremely important boundaries around their advice.

This is one of the top 2-3 books I have ever read on relationships.

One person found this helpful

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SJF

Very well written. Easy to read. Lots of information.

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent book. It is one of the most well written books I have ever read. Well written meaning easy to read.
By that I mean that the words, ideas and method of telling just flow.

I've been married for nearly 30 years to my wife and have two children in their 20's. My daughter just married last month.

I was perusing the new books at the library and sat down and read a chapter and thought, wow this is good. I then bought the kindle version and read it quickly, thoroughly and efficiently.

I had had a wonderful first ten years of marriage, a bit of sloshing around the second ten and a Reconstruction in the last ten. (We never got or needed counseling. It's going very well now and I love my wife and kids.) Most of my reconstruction came from talking and reading male, guy masculine stuff, including self improvement. As such I was a little bit leery of reading a book from a woman writer regarding relationship Game. But Luscombe surprised me by having esquisite balance between male and female needs, wants and strategies. Well done Belinda.

So what I would use the knowledge for is greater balance and understanding in relationship game, yours or others. And to have some confidence that maybe your marriage is not so bad. And if it is, some things you can do about it including a comprehensive overview of counseling.

Another tool to understand how to achieve balance and success and balance life with The Anna Karenina Principle:

From Wikipedia--

"The Anna Karenina principle states that a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms an endeavor to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavor (subject to this principle) is one where every possible deficiency has been avoided.

The name of the principle derives from Leo Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina, which begins:

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

In other words: in order to be happy, a family must be successful with respect to every one of a range of criteria, including sexual attraction, money issues, parenting, religion, and relations with in-laws. Failure on only one of these counts leads to unhappiness. Thus, there are more ways for a family to be unhappy than happy."

This book helps one identify and avoid some of those deficiencies.

Highly recommended reading.

27 people found this helpful

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JMMaser

Good read

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

I am using this book to check myself and marriage intelligence. It is easy to read and engaging. Author has good antidotes that illustrates her points well and uses her own relationship as the back drop. I like her use of her failures and successes, it makes the comparisons to a reader more tangible. Good book to re-evaluate and refocus marriage and relationships goals.

4 people found this helpful

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Nik

INCREDIBLE

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

I'm a 26 year old male reading this, trying to figure out what I want in life and this book kept me digging for more. It was informative, funny, educational, research-based and well written that is spectacularly easy to read. I'm actually really sad now that I've finished it and finding out Belinda has not written any other books! Get on it! open to suggestions for what to read next... Such valuable information that I think should be taught in education systems that is completely lacking. like the basic strategies for approaching conflicts or how economic spending can be divided when in a relationship, or the multiple motives for desire and the research on therapy and of course the interdisciplinary mechanics of when a kid is brought into the family... so cool. loved it.

9 people found this helpful

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FredF42

Spot on relationship advice spiced with humor

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

Found out about this book through another author’s recommendation. I am so glad I read this. She is spot on in both sharing her research and own life experiences that you feel like you are listening to a best friend. With sage humor and a straight to the point approach without being preachy, this is one of the best books about relationships I have read in a long while. Read a second time with my hubby of 30 years and it was a fun time for us both to share thoughts and discuss our own experiences on the roller coaster of marriage. I have several friends who will love this and be getting this book as a gift.

4 people found this helpful

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sarah

Relatable book about the philosophy of marriage

Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2019

Marriageology was a great book, I thought it had a lot of good advice and I especially enjoyed the author relating it back to her life. If you didn’t know, her husband is an architect 😁 but you’ll learn more about that in the book.
It was nice to read a book that is relatable, it helps to realize that you’re not the only person going through things and you’re not crazy.
Each chapter focused on different aspects of marriage, how to navigate the differences and relate to one another, to reach a pleasing compromise. This book isn’t preachy and the author isn’t an “expert” in marriage, it’s her advice and experiences and I like that approach.
I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a little reassurance that marriage is hard but worth it and here is an entertaining, realistic approach on how to navigate the bumpy road of marriage.

4 people found this helpful

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