The All-or-Nothing Marriage — Eli J. Finkel

Perhaps the most striking thing I learned is that the answer to whether today’s marriages are better or worse is “both”: The average marriage today is weaker than the average marriage of yore, in terms of both satisfaction and divorce rate, but the best marriages today are much stronger, in terms of both satisfaction and personal well-being, than t

“Most good enough marriages have the potential to become stronger and better with time, effort, and commitment,”

In the era of the institutional marriage, from the nation’s founding until around 1850, the prevalence of individual farming households meant that the main requirements Americans had for their marriage revolved around things like food production, shelter and protection from violence.

In the era of the companionate marriage, from roughly 1850 until 1

Over time, the argument for marriage has shifted. It’s no longer about external forces having power over us: religions, the state, the legal idea of legitimacy, the social idea of being respectable … What we are correctly now focused on is the psychological point of making it hard to throw in the towel. It turns out that we benefit greatly (though

Happily married couples may not be aware that they follow these Seven Principles, but they all do. Unhappy marriages always came up short in at least one of these seven areas—and usually in many of them. By mastering these Seven Principles, you can ensure that your own marriage will thrive. You’ll learn to identify which of these components are wea

who enter into marriage are spiritually broken by sin, which among other things means to be self-centered—living life incurvatus in se.41 As author Denis de Rougemont said, “Why should neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love . . . ?”

“A marriage can only be as healthy as the least healthy person in that partnership,”