Karl Pillemer > Quotes

“If you are entering into a permanent relationship based on the intention of change, you are on the wrong track.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“It’s my responsibility to be as happy as I can, right here, today.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The thing of it is, don’t love each other for wealth or money. You have to love each other because you love them. You feel that in your heart. You don’t care if they get old or if they get sick or if they get wrinkles. You don’t care about anything else, but just for them. You love them. And you don’t pretend to love them because of what they give you; you don’t pretend to love them because they’ve got money. You just have to love them because it’s somebody that you’d like to spend the rest of your life with.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage

“When you see the red flags, you better pay attention. Save yourself a lot of trouble. Sooner or later, he’s gonna show himself up, or she’s gonna show herself up. A lot of people make that mistake, saying: “Well I didn’t know.” Oh yeah, you knew! You better believe you saw the signs. You just thought that you were in love and you thought that you could take the risk. But listen, this is the person who you took into your life and you told yourself that you could trust. So be smart about it before you get into a marriage with a person like that, because some part of you knows it’s a mistake. Yes, you do.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage

“The noted family historian Stephanie Coontz sums up the research concisely: “Today married people in Western Europe and North America are generally happier, healthier, and better protected against economic setbacks and psychological depression than people in any other living arrangement.” Married people enjoy higher incomes and greater emotional support. Perhaps the most compelling sign that there is something to marriage is the proportion of divorced people who remarry (around 75 percent, and most of those within four years after the divorce)—a phenomenon that has sardonically been labeled “the triumph of hope over experience.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“According to the experts, in the face of objective differences (such as race or economic background), shared values and outlook on life will go a long way to promote both the quality and stability of a marriage.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“finding someone who is similar in upbringing, general orientation, and values is the single most important component of a long and satisfying marriage.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 3: Watch out for teasing.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“the premise is that real people who have been through a challenging experience are extraordinary sources of advice.”
― Karl Pillemer, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

“You are not responsible for all the things that happen to you, but you are completely in control of your attitude and your reactions to them. If you feel annoyance, fear, or disappointment, these feelings are cause by you and must be dug out like a weed. Study where they came from, accept them, and then let them go. If you let outside pressures determine how you feel and what you do, you have just abdicated your job as CEO of your own life.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“if you’re a free spender, marry somebody who understands that. If you’re frugal, you need to marry somebody who understands that, because money is one of the stumbling blocks in marriages. And fortunately we have the same values on most things.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Here’s the “refrigerator list” of lessons for successful married life: 1. Marry someone a lot like you. Similarity in core values and background is the key to a happy marriage. And forget about changing someone after marriage. 2. Friendship is as important as romantic love. Heart-thumping passion has to undergo a metamorphosis in lifelong relationships. Marry someone for whom you feel deep friendship as well as love. 3. Don’t keep score. Don’t take the attitude that marriage must always be a fifty-fifty proposition; you can’t get out exactly what you put in. The key to success is having both partners try to give more than they get out of the relationship. 4. Talk to each other. Marriage to the strong, silent type can be deadly to a relationship. Long-term married partners are talkers (at least to one another, and about things that count). 5. Don’t just commit to your partner—commit to marriage itself. Make a commitment to the idea of marriage and take it seriously. There are enormous benefits to seeing the marriage as bigger than the immediate needs of each partner.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Patty Banas, eighty, is one of the experts who made a go of a first marriage when young, divorced, and then “got it right” in her very happy second marriage. She too had one straightforward recommendation: BE SURE THAT YOU’RE really good friends. That is the most important thing. All the romance and the bells and the whistles are all very nice, but it doesn’t last. Be sure that you’re very good friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“And these researchers, in time-honored social-scientific fashion, substitute for “similarity” a more specialized term: “homogamy.” Homogamous marriages involve similar partners, whereas heterogamous marriages involve couples who differ in important characteristics. (Feel free to drop these terms at cocktail parties and amaze your friends.)”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“You just have to take one day at a time. It’s a good idea to plan ahead if possible, but you can’t always do that because things don’t always happen the way you were hoping they would happen. So the most important thing is one day at a time. Tip”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“MY ADVICE IS NOT putting off too long to do something, because there certainly are things to do at certain times in your life that you can’t do at others. There are no wheelchair ramps to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, so if you want to get down there, you have to go when you’ve still got two little feet.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“What’s the secret to a long, happy marriage?” was essentially, “I married my best friend.” Similarly, from those whose marriages did not succeed, I often heard, “Well, we were good at love, but we never learned how to be friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“No one knows better than the Depression-era generation the security that home-ownership brings or the enormous economic value of a college education. What you should avoid is going into debt for stuff—things like electronics or furniture that break before you have made the last payment, or expensive vacations.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage

“Tip 2: Find a way to blow off steam, and then engage with your partner.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“You’ve really got to listen and let them have their say. When they’re done, ask, “What would you want?” or “What do you think would be the right thing to do?” When I was in my twenties, I had all the answers. Now that I’m in my eighties, I’m not so sure my answers are always right.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The only way you can make a marriage work is to have both parties give 100 percent all the time.” It began to make sense: you can’t be calculating 50 percent in, 50 percent back. The attitude has to be one of giving freely. And if you start keeping score, you are already in trouble.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Karl Pillemer, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

“translucency”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Ask yourself before entering into a spousal argument: Is this really worth it?”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage

“AND YOU HAVE TO have, I think, a similar sense of humor. That was a very important part of our life together. In fact, just two weeks before he died, we were talking one night, and he said something and I just dissolved in laughter, and he looked at me so self-satisfied and said, “I can still make you laugh after all these years!” And he could.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“It’s a fact that life will hand us problems and difficulties—if that hasn’t happened to you yet, you’re lucky (and probably very young). Despite this fact, we all have the power to choose. We can make a conscious decision each day to embrace a positive attitude. It requires convincing yourself that you can wake up and decide to focus on positive emotions.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“Tip 4: Let your partner have his or her say.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“John Fordham, eighty-three, has been married to his wife, Elaine, for thirty-three years. When asked what the secret to a long, happy marriage was, he responded: “Well, I think that one should know oneself. And then I suppose there’s a semiconscious table of attitudes and values that one uses to find kindred spirits.” He explained that you should begin by taking an inventory of what you value and what you believe in. Only then can you understand what would make another person compatible.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“The experts counter by saying that travel is so rewarding that it should take precedence over other things younger people spend money on. They believe travel has special benefits for the young because it broadens their horizons, helps them to find a focus for their lives, and challenges them in new ways.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

“POLITICAL VALUES, FEELINGS ABOUT not living in an ostentatious way, about commitment to other people, and our own commitments. We both had different specific commitments, but strong commitments in feeling that we owed something back, that our lives were going pretty well and we owed something back, not only of resources, but of time. We both loved to travel, and we had a sense of adventure. We liked the same people, and I think that’s important. Very seldom did we disagree about friends.”
― Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans