Marriage For Equals

Negotiating collaboratively in your committed relationship is a new way to achieve individual and marital goals, to resolve differences equitably, to manage conflicts, to create and sustain a satisfying sex life, to figure out where you stand on fidelity, to think about having and caring for kids, and to have committed careers and a satisfying family life. Negotiating collaboratively supports you and your partner seeing yourselves simultaneously as individuals and as a couple—enhances the sense of “being in this together” while also having individual life plans. Negotiating collaboratively supports valuing each other as individuals before seeing each other as husband and wife, and allows modern couples to challenge old gender trappings that can undermine the achievement of balance in a committed relationship. Straightforward and accessible, A Marriage of Equals offers couples a road map for how to negotiate collaboratively around the most essential aspects of a committed relationship—and, in doing so, create the equitable marriage they long for.

Marriage, for Equals: The Successful Joint (Ad)Ventures of Well-Educated Couples pulls back the curtain on a number of dangerously misleading messages promoted in the media and popular press that encourage us to commit to ticking-time-bomb relationships. In addition to revealing the telltale signs of doomed relationships, this book also describes a form of marriage that is highly successful and deeply rewarding to many of the smartest women in this generation. To profile these relationships, Marriage for Equals draws from a poll of more than 1200 women, mostly Harvard graduates and their equally capable friends, who are working to create truly equal partnerships. The end result is a guidebook to a marriage of equals that offers a blunt, bold, and refreshingly truthful approach about what it takes to create and sustain an exceptional partnership. "With a combination of research, clinical insight, and plain good sense, author Shauna Springer sorts out the state of romantic love today, bursting more than a few myths in the process. For anyone confused about intimate relationships, this book offers a clear, highly readable, and entertaining road map." -- Dr. Benjamin Karney, Professor of Psychology, UCLA "A fresh look at love and marriage, stripping away the fantasies and revealing the realities, this book should be read by every person who is (or hopes to be) in love and/or married. While grounded in research, the concepts are presented in common sense terms and are presented in a way that is both entertaining and enlightening. I wholeheartedly recommend it." -- Peggy Vaughan, Author and Host of DearPeggy.com "The best predictor of well-being is a healthy and happy relationship. By drawing on clinical experience and solid research, this wonderful book can help you realize your potential for well-being--and love." --Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, Author of Being Happy Shauna Springer, Ph.D., earned her undergraduate degree in English Literature from Harvard University and her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Florida. She has particular expertise in marital counseling, stressor effects on marriage, trauma recovery, and women's issues.

Risking everything...for love! Having struggled so hard to become a successful business owner, Jamaica-born Psyche Winthrop-Abeni has no interest in relinquishing her freedom or property to a husband. But when gentleman Will Barclay comes to her aid, their intense connection tempts her into a thrillingly passionate, temporary affair! It's the perfect arrangement...until Will feels honour-bound to propose. His offer is one she'd never dared to dream of, but can she trust Will enough to take the risk?

"...any couple contemplating marriage or reevaluating an existing one will find powerful information and encouragement here for a true marriage of minds." -- Kirkus Reviews "Pepper Schwartz is remarkable. She explains to us the possibilities for relationships that remain for so many a fantasy. This book is a necessity for anyone who wants to understand how partnerships work but more importantly wants to really love." -- Wendy Wasserstein, Playwright: author of Isn't It Romantic?, The Heidi Chronicles, and The Sisters Rosensweig

NAMED ONE OF COSMOPOLITAN'S "15 BEST MARRIAGE BOOKS ALL COUPLES SHOULD READ." An accessible, transformative guide for couples seeking greater love, connection, and intimacy in our modern world Nate and Kaley Klemp were both successful in their careers, consulting for high-powered companies around the world. Their work as mindfulness and leadership experts, however, often fell to the wayside when they came home in the evening, only to end up fighting about fairness in their marriage. They believed in a model where each partner contributed equally and fairness ruled, but, in reality, they were finding that balance near impossible to achieve. From this frustration, they developed the idea of the 80/80 marriage, a new model for balancing career, family, and love. The 80/80 Marriage pushes couples beyond the limited idea of "fairness" toward a new model grounded on radical generosity and shared success, one that calls for each partner to contribute 80 percent to build the strongest possible relationship. Drawing from more than one hundred interviews with couples from all walks of life, stories from business and pop culture, scientific studies, and ancient philosophical insights, husband-and-wife team Nate and Kaley Klemp pinpoint exactly what's not working in modern marriage. Their 80/80 model of marriage provides practical, powerful solutions to transform your relationship and open up space for greater love and connection.

"My story starts at the very end of the journey to equal marriage rights. I stand on the shoulders of giants..." In the future, people will find it difficult to believe that until 2014, somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of Britain's population were excluded from marriage. As Equalities Minister during the coalition government, Lynne Featherstone played a fundamental role in rectifying this. From setting the wheels in motion within government, to her experiences of the abuse with which the gay community is regularly confronted, through her rebuttals against the noise and fury of her opponents, and finally to the making of history, Lynne details the surprising twists and turns of the fight. Filled with astonishing revelations about finding allies in unexpected places and encountering resistance from unforeseen foes, Equal Ever After is an honest account of one woman's pivotal efforts during the turbulent final mile. This is real, lived history - recent history. Many of us celebrated on the day the dream became reality; many of us know people whose lives were changed by the events described here. In this inside story, Lynne reveals the emotional lows and the exhilarating highs involved in turning hard-won social acceptance into tangible legal equality.

Everyone tells you marriage is hard, but no one tells you what to do about it. At age thirty-four, Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long, Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone’s partner—all the time? In the tradition of writers such as Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Gilbert, award-winning journalist and nationally bestselling author Jo Piazza writes a provocative memoir of a real first year of marriage that will forever change the way we look at matrimony. A travel editor constantly on the move, Jo journeys to twenty countries on five continents to figure out what modern marriage means. Throughout this stunning, funny, warm, and wise personal narrative, she gleans wisdom from matrilineal tribeswomen, French ladies who lunch, Orthodox Jewish moms, Swedish stay-at-home dads, polygamous warriors, and Dutch prostitutes. Written with refreshing candor, elegant prose, astute reporting, and hilarious insight into the human psyche, How to Be Married offers an honest portrait of an utterly charming couple. When life throws more at them than they ever expected—a terrifying health diagnosis, sick parents to care for, unemployment—they ultimately create a fresh understanding of what it means to be equal partners during the good and bad times. Through their journey, they reveal a framework that will help the rest of us keep our marriages strong, from engagement into the newlywed years and beyond.

It was a long time in coming, but in March 2014, marriage was finally opened up to same-sex couples in the way it has been enjoyed for so long by their opposite-sex counterparts. Marriage is the institution through which our lives are defined: we are married, divorced, single, or widowed. It gives shape to our family relationships. Through marriage, we have access to the words for the closest connections in our lives, such as aunts and uncles, grandparents and step-children. Marriage is an internationally recognised institution that eases international travel and work for spouses. It formalises a union using traditions we have built up and treasure. And marriage is the inspiration behind some of our our greatest cultural highlights: love poems and novels, films, music and songs. Whether we choose to embrace or accept marriage ourselves, for same-sex couples to have been denied that choice is for them to have been denied a human right. Changes will occur as traditions adjust to accommodate new ceremonies, but as Sophie Ward points out in this poignant Short, the history of marriage is one of constant change over the centuries. Drawing on her personal experience of both marriage and civil partnership, ‘A Marriage Proposal’ is a moving exploration of what the opening up of marriage means for couples, their families and society as a whole. It sets out why the argument was settled in the right manner. Above all, it is a celebration of the institution of marriage, of its traditions and of the paramount importance for each and every one of us to be able to choose whether or not to say, with absolute equality, “I do”.