Pamela Haag > Quotes

“Is a partially unfulfilling but stable marriage a romantic failure or a post-romantic ideal? When you stay, maybe you have realistic expectations or maybe you're just rationalizing mediocrity; when you leave, maybe you're courageous or maybe you're just selfishly deluded. In the gloaming of the romantic age, we've valorized marital mediocrity, and called it realism; we've vilified marital ambition, and called it selfish. Consequently, at a time when marriage could be anything, we very often expect it to be less.”
― Pamela Haag, Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses, and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting the Rules

“Gathering up all the stories on the continuum...I am inclined to think that we should stop calling nonmonogamy a marital problem and call it a marital culture instead.”
― Pamela Haag, Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses, and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting the Rules