Marian Volkman reviews

The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts
by Wallerstein, Judith/Blakeslee, Sandra
ISBN: 0446672483

The author thought that an awful lot had been studied and written about dysfunctional relationships and that it was high time that someone made a good study of successful, long-lived relationships to see what makes them work. Based on in-depth interviews with fifty couples, she identifies a number of key elements and styles of successful partnerships. Besides being a refreshing change from looking at the dark side, the book offers hope that real, excellent, long-lasting relationship is definitely possible. One of the most valuable discoveries of this study, in my opinion, is the fact that successful couples tend to treat their relationship as a living entity in its own right, to pay attention to how it is doing, and to nurture it. Chapters 10 and 12 could constitute a little handbook for having a relationship that is not co-dependant. Chapter 10 deals with how people in successful marriages deal with crisis that arises from outside the family, while Chapter 12 talks about how these people handle conflict within the relationship.

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