No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried To Make It Better.

by Elizabeth Weil

Written with charm and wit, No Cheating, No Dying investigates one of the most universal human institutions--marriage. Elizabeth Weil and her husband Dan have two basic ground rules for their marriage: no cheating, no dying.  For ten years it’s worked fine, but Elizabeth started to wonder if it could be better.

Elizabeth Weil believes that you don’t get married in a white dress, in front of all your future in-laws and ex-boyfriends but gradually, over time, through all the road rage incidents and pre-colonoscopy enemas, good and bad dinners, and all the small moments you never expected to happen or much less endure.  In this book, Weil examines the major universal marriage issues—sex, money, mental health, in-laws, children—through bravely recounting her own hilarious, messy, and sometimes difficult relationship. She seeks out the advice of financial planners, psychoanalysts, therapists, household management consultants, priests, rabbis, and the United States government. Woven into this funny and forthright narrative is Weil's extensive research on marriage and marriage improvement. The result is an illuminating and entertaining read that is a fresh addition to the body of literature about marriage.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Marriage, Relationships, Self Help, Biography, Unfinished

192 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth Weil is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, the writer Daniel Duane, and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this book through the Vogue article about the Alcatraz swim (loved). Liked the book in the beginning, but upon completion it's been like spending time with an annoying frenemy and now I have to call another friend (goodreads) and talk shit about it.
1. Regarding the weekends at my parents house in Napa issue. Let me get me this straight. Dan declares he will not live in Cambridge and Weil surrenders and agrees to live in San Francisco forever. Her parents thus move across the country to Napa to be closer to their grandchildren. Weil wants the family to go on mini vacations to Napa two weekends a month so kids can see grandparents. The main issue in therapy is that Dan doesnt want to because the retirement community they live in is ugly and offensive to him. And the therapists side with Dan?
2. Dan can write a novel about his ex (complete with sex scenes included in Best American Erotica collection) yet Weil isn't allowed to have three old forgotten photos of ex boyfriends in a box full of childhood photos without Dan having a tantrum and resultant therapy sessions about how she's damaged the trust of their relationship?

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Through the first 40% of the book the phrase that kept running through my head was not “whole life creative act” (whatever the hell that means) but “FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS! FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!” “Oh boo-hooie my sexy, sensitive, super fit husband won’t stop cooking delicious exotic meals for me. Sob sob cry cry, we can’t agree on whether to summer in Napa or not.” But towards the middle I actually started to really enjoy the book and identify with Weil’s marital saga. Her problems and relationship dynamics are very different from my own, but it’s refreshing to hear someone really dig deep and expose the harder, more sensitive, more heartrending issues that arise in a lifelong commitment. I appreciated her candor and honesty. She doesn’t hold anything back, and I enjoyed witnessing the complexity of someone else’s marriage. I don’t like self-help books because they are generally written so poorly. But I believe in the instructive, transformative power of stories, therefore I love autobiographies. I also like listening to people’s relationship problems which made this a good choice for me. My favorite part was when Dan implodes with grief about their aborted son and snaps at a family dinner. While consoling him, in the midst of her own pain and feeling torn between her family and her marriage, she realizes, this right here is being married. Yes. I love that. I actually find it deeply romantic even though it’s a hard truth. Battling in the trenches with your partner, seeing them as real people, making complex choices about how to be with them and also be autonomous is part of the whole deal. I find it extremely rewarding to work on my relationship, to dig through all these layers, to become better.

I imagine Weil’s issues are probably very relatable to a lot of women. The part where she breaks up with a friend her husband doesn’t like struck a cord for me. I don’t have friends my husband doesn’t like. We’ve been through it before and while he makes no demands on who I can have in my life and I can certainly pursue the friendships outside of our relationship, it just makes it awkward. He stays away if the person is at our house, skips social events if he knows they will be there. It makes me tense and angry. I don’t like to compartmentalize people in my life and he is unyielding when he decides he does not like someone. He is very easy going and rarely takes issue with someone. He trusts his instincts 100% if he thinks a person is not worthwhile. Although it’s been an infrequent conflict I’ve had to choose a few times between friends that I enjoy that are not compatible with my husband.

It gets a lot of air time but I appreciated Weil’s focus on her and her husband’s Napa problem. It’s helpful to see how in even a wonderful, loving, strong relationship something that seems like a small issue can spiral into a flirt with divorce. I’ve been through a few Napa sized issues with my husband for sure. I’m glad they are working through it too, because I think Weil’s insistence on spending three weekends a month (at least!) with her parents IS pathological regardless of all her rationalizations about free childcare and her kids being close to their grandparents.

One final point – Weil’s mania about the brown socks made me laugh. I can’t say enough wonderful things about my husband – he makes dinner, he cleans all the time, he rubs my feet in the evenings, he is a brilliant and insightful colleague and a great friend, we have a fantastic sex life and he even makes fabulous jewelry! I adore him in so many ways and YET, yet….he does a few things that make me want to stab him and one is related to socks. I wear a size 6. My husband wears a size 10 yet he constantly wears my socks. Why he feels the need to shove his size 10 feet into my tiny socks I will never understand but it makes me wild. I only wear socks to the gym and every time I look for a pair they are all dirty. I’ve reasoned with him about this, I’ve purchased many more pairs of socks, I’ve even tried buying bright pink socks. Nothing works, and now every pair of my socks is stretched out beyond recognition. In fact, when I was reading this book last night I peeked over my Kindle and realized he was wearing my socks RIGHT THAT VERY MINUTE – a mismatched pair. Ahh, marriage.  But isn’t it true, as Weil points out – these quirky things are also the very unique things we would miss about our spouses, those parts of them that have resisted relationship homogenization?

[Camille · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda cute book, I guess, but it did make me roll my eyes a little at how petty upper middle class white American people can be....sorry, upper middle class white American people, but you know it's true. Always looking for trouble and stirring things up where it's no need to stir. Don't start none, won't be none. Good lord.

[BookBrowse · Rating 4 out of 5]

(From BookBrowse: http://bit.ly/uqXwxs) I just finished No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried to Make It Better. (Scribner, Feb 2012) by Elizabeth Weil. It's a fun, easy read, but with depth.

I'm not a big fan of "self help" books, steering away from tomes that threaten to give me step by step improvement instructions. Instead I prefer to learn from other people's narratives (that is to say, other people's mistakes) - which is just what one can do from No Cheating, No Dying.

This often funny, sometimes brave book expands on an article Weil wrote for the New York Times a couple of years ago. I read the article after finishing the book, and my first reaction was that reading just the article would have been sufficient. But, on even the briefest reflection, I realized that that's not the case because whereas the article reads as a series of related, amusing, vignettes on the author's quest to improve an already decent marriage, it takes a 170 page book, and the time it takes to write said book, to fully reflect on something as complex as a marriage, in order to join the dots and be able to separate the true trigger points from the peripheral irritations. In other words, whereas the article is an amusing conversation piece to read over your Sunday coffee, the book enables the reader (or at least this reader) to gain perspective on her own life - which is, I assume, why most of us read in the first place.

If you're in a long term relationship which seems comfortable enough but you think might be improved, save yourself a visit to the shrink and pick up a copy of No Cheating, No Dying - especially if you enjoy "warts and all" memoirs laced with humor and delightfully free of smugness.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

By the end of this book, I disliked the author and her husband so much I was wishing they would get divorced just to put me out of my misery.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads. Personally, I think the title is a bit off. I would re-title this: "I thought my Marriage was Good, but it wasn't and so I did all these things to try to make it Good, while hiding my true intention under the premise that I was working on a book about Good Marriages that could be Better Marriages and in the end, I just gave up."

Wow, I don't really even know where to start on this one. At times it was interesting, but many more times, I found it to be boring, annoying, and overly laced with quotes and theories from outside marital and relationship sources that were not written/incorporated in a fashion that was easy to follow or understand. I don't know that much was accomplished in this book when it comes to positive, solid, or good marital advice. I don't really feel that this book is useful in gaining any insight into marriage, other than making many wives out there feel great that they are not married to Dan. In Weil's book, I learned that Elizabeth Weil's husband is a childish, self-centered, neurotic, foul-mouthed, obsessive, mentally abusive, insecure, mentally unstable, and immature man. Traits that don't really make men great in the marriage or dating department for that matter. I also learned that Elizabeth herself is a insecure childish doormat, which is probably why she puts up with Dan. I can't respect either of those personalities and consequently do not view anything really positive coming out their marital life or this book. They are a strange and neurotic couple indeed! In the book, Weil undertakes different forms of couples therapy. More often than not, she attends the couple sessions alone. More often than not, the sessions lead no where. In the end, the final therapist dismisses them for lack of need in the counseling department and the book is summed up with a sense that Weil has decided to leave well enough alone. Well enough. "Then, for better or worse--at least for a while---we declared our project done." Our project??? Again, Weil's "our project" was very often a solo pursuit that her husband tolerated by not taking part in. Just sweep all the problems under the rug for later---how is that supposed to help? For those seeking positive marital advice, take it from a lady who has been married for almost twenty years, look somewhere else. This one really misses the mark. As for this couple, it would serve them well to quit being so immature and learn what it means to love with altruism.

[K.J. Dell'Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just such an honest memoir of what this was--a writer who thought she could write about practices to improve her marriage without admitting we could all use a few. Things get worse before they get better, and it makes great reading. Admitted: thinking Weil's husband could maybe read David Finch's "Journal of Best Practices." I saw myself in it, and I thought I spotted him a few times. I loved how Weil first decided he needed to change, then recognized--inevitably--that she had some stuff to figure out, too.

Engaging, imminently readable, thought-provoking--a great story of recognizing that help isn't always where we expect to find it, or when.

[Meredith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Contrived and just boring I'm sorry to say.

[Mel · Rating 1 out of 5]

ugh, this book is so cringy and yet boring as well.
I have no desire reading about this woman write about her sex life or how her marriage is good, but for the sake of this book they go to different counseling to make their marriage better. But it just comes off as a bunch of hippy dippy baloney.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/950d66e2...

Why did I buy this book? Parts of it felt as though she was an infomercial for other books, including her husband. This is a book, I regret buying and regret reading.

[Jacinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found parts of this funny and well researched. The religious angle nearly made me hiff it away but because Weils effort and honesty were applaud able I continued and enjoyed it.

[Lee Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started out liking this memoir, in which writer Elizabeth Weil and her writer husband Daniel Duane undergo (at Weil's suggestion) a yearlong program to improve their already-good marriage. In doing so, they discovered a few small problems that were painful to explore, but doing so really did seem to bring them closer.

At first, I could relate to Weil, even though she responds to things very differently than I do. She describes her husband's monomaniacal obsessions (with surfing, power lifting, or extreme cooking--think butchering a lamb or making head cheese), which are certainly something I, a "skateboard widow," can relate to. But after her husband exploded in a rage because he hates spending vacation time at her parents' gated condo community (he'd rather take their two daughters camping or otherwise exploring the rugged parts of California), I wondered if Weil was aware of how she was painting her husband. She seems to go along with whatever he wants to do, and on this one VERY reasonable thing that she wants to do, he blows up and gets her to kowtow to his emotions. Then again, it would be interesting to hear things from his perspective. Maybe she's employing more passive-aggressive behavior than she lets on. This wasn't enough to make me dislike the book; again, I just couldn't really relate.

But then, during the chapter on sex, Weil expresses revulsion at discussing her husband's pre-Weil girlfriends, and he gets angry, AGAIN, when he finds she still has, in a box FULL of old pictures, some of an ex-boyfriend. This was the deal-breaker for me and this book. I do not understand, DO NOT UNDERSTAND, people who act like this. Your partner would not be the person he/she is without having dated the people before you. No one comes to you pristine and in a clam shell, and it's immature and self-involved to "feel ill" at the mention of your husband's old girlfriend. You have him, why does that long ago girlfriend have anything to do with you? And as for him, that's even worse. To throw away some old snapshots of previous boyfriends does not erase that they were once a part of your wife's life. It isn't as if she's pining over these pictures; she didn't even seem to know they were in the box. They deserve each other. I'm glad they're happy.

So this would have been a 3-star book; as it is, a 2.5. I'm still staff recommending it at work, though, because it would make a great book for a book club, and it did make me think about my own marriage.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

i sure wish i would have reviewed this three & a half months ago when i actually read it, because now i barely remember it. the general idea is that weil decided that maybe her perfectly respectable & stable marriage could be even better that it already was if she & her husband put some effort into it--effort in the form of marriage counselors, couples retreats, & all kinds of other goofy nonsense i wouldn't be able to rope jared into in a thousand years, unless MAYBE our relationship was truly on the brink of dissolving. no way would he go for any of this stuff just to humor me. he won't even play "guess the baby's gender" with me just to humor me, & that's a lot lower stakes than messing with your relationship.

but weil's partner is a better sport than jared, i guess, & he goes along with it & allows weil to write this extremely skimpy stunt memoir. seriously, the book was probably over 200 pages...but with enormous margins. it could have been a damn pamphlet had the layout been more economical. & it was cringe-inducing in that way that things sometimes are when people are like, "my life isn't too shabby...so let's apply some laser focus self-awareness to it & see if i can fuck it all up!" nothing terrible happens, but that's more a function of luck than intention.

i wish wish wish i had better recall of this book so i could specify certain elements that were especially hilarious or awful. but it was seriously in one ear & out the other or whatever the reading-a-book equivalent of that would be. maybe that's a review in & of itself. tastes great, less filling?

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confession: I'm a total voyeur, and love reading books about other people's marriages because it's hard not to find it fascinating in comparison to your own. In fact, I think I read another marriage "expose" book very similar to this one recently. It's really hard for me to imagine laying it all out there as this author did--so many private thoughts splayed out on the page for anyone to read. And I especially can't imagine being the spouse who wouldn't mind being exposed just as severely. She said things about her husband and in-laws where I thought, "doesn't she know they're going to read this book??".

The author takes on an "experiment," saying she has a good marriage but wants to make it better. There's a lot of good food for thought here, about how you define a "good marriage," what weird coping behaviors some of us come up with for things we are less-than-content about, and how good is good enough (considering marriage is full of compromise, and nobody's marriage preserves the same initial flurry-of-love feelings with the same intensity over decades). None of us really know, and we have to each define it for ourselves. It's fascinating stuff.

My only compliant is that it just felt somewhat "manufactured," since after all the whole point of the book was to do experiments on their marriage for the book. So it felt a bit "staged" I guess. But I still enjoyed it.

[Libby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I found this book annoying--I learned more about Liz and Dan than I wanted to know (TMI)--there are some helpful things they learned in their odyssey through various forms of marital therapy. For one thing, they learned to take risks with each other, to be empathic to the other (big improvement as both individuals are rather self-centered and self-involved), and to maintain autonomy despite the conflicts it caused (necessary for real intimacy). Liz learned how her wish to accommodate her parents at Dan's expense hurt him, something she hadn't known--or wanted to know--before, and he became aware of how his obsessions--complicated cooking and home repair projects, his intense involvement in various sport and fitness regimes--helped bind his anxiety and depression. For those who aren't aware of the variety of therapies available for couples, it provides an overview. However, Sue Johnson's EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) wasn't mentioned, and it's a very effective therapy for couples. It's a breezy, entertaining read on a rather serious subject, but the most important things I got from it was that real life is messy, love takes many forms, and a good relationship can't be taken for granted.

[Jack Cheng]

The premise to this memoir is that the author takes on various therapies and exercises to improve her marriage over the course of a year. It's a short book, which is good because both partners in the marriage are insufferable in different ways, although this is clearly exaggerated somewhat for comedic effect. And of course, where she writes about how well she and her husband get along sounds like bragging. She can't win with me.

Any tips to take away? Listen empathically, be close but do your own thing and maintain your own identity, blah blah blah. Ultimately, Weil won me over because she seems to be the person best suited for her husband and he for her. And she scores with the last chapter, where she reviews memoirs of spousal loss that she found moving and reminds us that the things that drive us crazy about our partners (the socks on the floor, or whatever) are the bits of themselves that they have NOT shared with us, and thus the things that we will miss the most when they're gone.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book on a whim; sure, G and I aren't married but as we approach nine years I thought this would be an interesting read. And it was -- if you can get past the "first world problems" veneer. Weil uncovers some fascinating research - or lack thereof - exploring what it takes to have a happy, "good" marriage and bravely (if not unnecessarily) "pokes around in the bushes" of her union with fellow writer Dan Duane to see what will emerge. It's easy to dismiss their issues as mere plights of the privileged (a self-trained chef of a husband who INSISTS on cooking extravagant exotic meals; debates over whether to spend weekends with their daughters in the Sierra Nevada or Napa...THE HORROR) but underneath all of that lies a loving marriage plagued with very real - and relatable - issues, baggage, heartache, and loss. The discoveries they make about themselves and their marriage kept me hooked till the end of this (rather short) book.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually struggled a lot with wanting to give this a 4th star, I think mostly because (and you can decide for yourself whether this is a good thing or a bad thing if you read it) I think I'm very similar to the author and could identify with a lot of her thoughts/feelings on things. It's a fun read, though, and it pretty short and easy to get through. If you're looking for a quick read that's a little different (not fiction, not quite memoir, not really self-help - but too personal to be considered research) I'd definitely recommend it. But if after you read it you think the author is a terrible person, feel free not to tell me :-)

[Bea Elwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost rated it a four but I just can't get over how the fight about spending time with her parents was so "emasculating" for him when nothing is said to address how his behavior was so grossly immature and controlling. I did appreciate how authentic her struggles felt, she really opened up about a lot of unflattering and difficult things about her marriage. I found her method and reflections to be sincere and I learned a few techniques from the narrative I can take with me.

[Epi]

I first heard about this book when E.W. wrote for NY Time's Modern Love. Honestly, I'm intrigued by the concept, and can't wait to put eyes to page.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book functioned better as a long-ish magazine piece, which helped the author distill her findings. She's prone to meandering in the book. Even so, it gave me food for thought.

[Lauren L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and hilarious

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice insight into the internal struggles of a married couple's relationship, helped me to reflect upon my own relationship challenges.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book deserves better than a 3 rating, especially if you like this type of thing. But I found parts of it to be so cringy that I have to balance that against the valuable advice and entertainment that it provided. As is common in the memoir genre, there's a lot of humble-bragging going on -- as author Elizabeth Weil constantly regales us with the extravagant dinners her husband cooks, while saying that she is annoyed with the mess he makes in the kitchen; and she tells us over and over how good-looking he is, while saying that his weight training and surfing got a little boring for her as a rare participant. And I didn't need to hear 40 times in this brief book that he's so good-looking.

In other words, she's got a life that most of her readers would envy, but she's nonetheless trying to justify her decision to work on her marriage. Obviously, the main justification was a book deal, which she indirectly acknowledges by saying that she and her husband (also a writer and journalist) would scramble for any assignment they could get. This one was pretty plum.

However, I'll give her huge kudos for putting in a ton of research, and on many levels. She read extensively and widely, from self-help to real psychology to religion to novels. She and her husband were subjected to numerous forms of counseling and therapy. And she was extremely introspective as well. And somehow, she wraps this up into a neat and readable package that contains wisdom.

As an example of what's impressive, Liz and Dan sign up for a two-time, all-day couples retreat. The two weekend days take place about 5-6 weeks apart so that the couples can work on the things that came up in the 1st session and then get feedback in the 2nd session. So, in total this is 16 hours of intensive education and discussion, plus emotionally draining work in between (and who knows how many research hours to even pick this counselor in the first place). Liz wraps this up in about 7 pages of text. And yet, you feel like you're in the room with them at the first session and really understand the issues that it raised and they worked on.

Boiling it down is the point of this book. Every chapter is short and focuses on one aspect of their relationship (money, sex, kids, fidelity), both on how it was going and what she tried to improve.
Each chapter seems to have a lesson or two that is stated with clarity: monogamy isn't just the husband and wife not sleeping with someone else, but it's also how they split their time with each other vs. with their kids, family and friends; that a lot of what we do in a relationship is about trying to maintain some level of our own autonomy, even though that feels to our spouse like we're pulling away; that small lies or omissions can hurt even years down the road (or maybe especially years down the road); that a trauma is hard to overcome; and more.

This is useful stuff, and it's packaged in the entertaining (but cringy) fly-on-the-wall way. And yet, I don't see applying it to my marriage. I'm not introspective enough, and my wife is too introspective: for her, it's all about her, not us. (Maybe that suggests I do need to do this type of work with her!) Plus, I find that the author's indulgence in this exercise isn't wholly relevant for most people, as she has a hugely privileged life that is so far beyond the way most people can live. On the other hand, they can take one of the lessons from her book and work on just that for a while, and see how it goes.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a reader, I always want to be open to the story the author wants to tell, and not the one I want to hear. With that said, I found myself struggling with Weil's presentational of herself. She blocks a a self I want to see more of. The one that is enamored by Joan Didion's "The year of magical thinking". Or the troubled broken self dealing with a couple addressing difficult questions about sustained passion, monogamy, raising children and faith. There is an undeniable marriage of stability in her middle-class, 10 years strong marriage. It's commendable and worthy of deep exploration.

Elizabeth Weil's memoir on her marriage is full of interesting observations, but so often the reader is kept on the periphery. We won't be hearing these stories in the way she would to her girlfriends. Almost every aspect that is delicious in this story, particularly her husband's delicious cheesiness in writing romance novels, Eagles-cover songs, and pig's head adventures, goes far too light with detail and emotion. Even her investigation of her own boundaries feel largely unexplored. I would love to her her share her own doubts about marriage counseling or her self-reflection on her friends who choose divorce for a a more spirited life.

There are parts of the book i did really enjoy. The chapter on "Religion" has this perfect mix of abstract references to the force of religion as a stabilizer and an inter-generational identity. And She also has some great stories to share about her inter-faith marriage. Her chapter on monogamy skirts around salacious details, but a moving expansive story about an aquatic adventure with her husband gives her the poetic quality not unlike Didion.

Ultimately I found the book a bit like Weil's description of her marriage - good enough.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

From my Amazon review of June 5, 2012:

It is true that there are no deep, profound insights about marriage to be gleaned from this book. But there are some interesting thoughts.

I liked learning about the different therapies the couple tried and how effective each one of them was. And how the process of improvement uncovered some fundamental trade offs between intimacy and separateness or loyalty to parents vs loyalty to spouse or the stability/boredom of domestication vs the riskiness/excitement of eroticness.

What I took from this book is that each marriage will deal with some issues vary according to the couple and some universal issues that affect any long term relationship, but ultimately if you are patient and work through them, most of the issues are not insurmountable. Which does not mean that every problem will be neatly resolved, just that you'll learn to live with them.

I would also like to defend the husband who has come in for a quite a beating in these reviews. Dan is not perfect but he seems to me to be a loving husband. Apart from the couple of issues mentioned (cooking obsession, visiting in laws, occasional temper while driving) they seem to get along pretty well and to be good parents together. At least he is there for his family, he is not unavailable workaholic like many dads who in other ways are quite caring.

This is all coming from the perspective of a single never married guy who enjoyed the book as a chance to get a realistic idea of what it might be like to be married! :-)

[CJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a personal story about how one woman decided that her marriage being good was no reason not to try to improve it. It doesn't give specific instructions or advice, or say "you should do X to improve your marriage," it just talks about one couple. They have ups and downs, recurring fights, bad habits -- pretty much what any marriage has. It describes the various workshops and therapies they went to, and exercises and tasks they did with each other. (Reading about her emailing her husband the list of the "Nine Taoist Thrusts" was amusing.) There's probably at least a little something that will resonate with anyone who reads this -- I know there was for me -- but it's not a must-read.

[Lira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rarely do you get an inside-view into the minutiae of all the actual challenges that couples face. Parts of this were humorous, but told from a place of such whiteness and privilege that on the whole, it came off as offensively self-indulgent. Nonetheless, it was interesting, anthropologically as well as personally (because I can be this way, too), to see what pure, unaffected self-indulgence looks like.

[Kyla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I managed to get through this book but there were definitely parts that literally went in one ear and out the other. Here I thought I was getting a funny memoir about marriage and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The author’s writing seems very contrived and while she had chapters about every subject under the sun, I think she was careful not to reveal too much which inevitably left me feeling underwhelmed.

[Michelle Vandepol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming, funny, and insightful. An eyes-wide-open, practical look at marriage and the industry around attempting to protect it. Worth reading before investing in marriage counseling. It might change your mind about approach.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't a huge fan and gave up after about 50pgs.