Making a Success of Marriage: Planning for Happily Ever After

217 Pages·2010·0.69 MB·English

by  David Yount

Family and Relationships / Marriage Yount
Making a
M S u c c e s s of
“ Making a Success of Marriage is a much-needed guide for a More than 2 million Americans marry
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couples who truly want to make their relationships MARRIAGE every year, each couple determined to live
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n together happily ever after. Tragically, half
work. David Yount has an engaging and compelling
David Yount, an experienced pastoral g of all fi rst marriages fail, and subsequent
formula for taking the guesswork out of marriage and
attempts are even more likely to end in
counselor and previous Marriage Encounter a
helping couples to continually deepen the commitment divorce. David Yount knows that lasting
leader, is the author of thirteen books,
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wedlock requires more than romantic love.
including Growing in Faith: A Guide for the and foundation that drew them together in the fi rst u
Success depends on a couple’s commitment
Reluctant Christian, Celebrating the Rest of Your c
place. Great for any couple, whether long-married or and compatibility of heart and mind to
Life: A Baby Boomer’s Guide to Spirituality, and c
e survive the inevitable trials of facing life
How the Quakers Invented America. His column, considering marriage for the fi rst time.”
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together. Drawing on decades as a counselor
Amazing Grace, is syndicated weekly by s
— Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, Ph.D., o and his own experience as a husband and
Scripps Howard to newspapers with a
author of There’s an Easter Egg on Your Seder Plate: f parent, Yount puts readers on the path to a
combined readership of 25 million, and he
Surviving Your Child’s Interfaith Marriage PLANNING for successful union.
hosts a television show based on the column. M
He and his wife of thirty-two years live in
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Yount offers no-nonsense advice
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Northern Virginia.
on a wide range of issues, including
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fi nancial budgeting, maintaining health,
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dealing with in-laws, parenting, sharing
I responsibilities, establishing common
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values, and recovering from divorce. He
G includes questions designed to stimulate
For orders and information please refl ection and discussion on key issues, such
E
contact the publisher
as compromise, religious beliefs, equality
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. in marriage, and more—some surprising.
Marriage is a great adventure into the
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefi eld unknown. Making a Success of Marriage is a
Publishing Group, Inc.
user’s guide for that adventure.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706
David Yount
www.rowmanlittlefi eld.com
Rowman &
Littlefi eld
Jacket design by Gore Studio, Inc.
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Making a
Success of Marriage
BOOKS BY DAVID YOUNT
Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian
Breaking Through God’s Silence: A Guide to Effective Prayer
Spiritual Simplicity: Simplify Your Life and Refresh Your Spirit
Ten Thoughts to Take into Eternity: Living Wisely in Light of the Afterlife
Be Strong and Courageous: Letters to My Children about Being Christian
What Are We to Do? Living the Sermon on the Mount
Faith under Fire: Religion’s Role in the American Dream
The Future of Christian Faith in America
Celebrating the Rest of Your Life: A Baby Boomer’s Guide to Spirituality
How the Quakers Invented America
Growing in Faith: A Guide for the New Millennium
A Journey through America’s Spiritual Utopias: From the Cloister to the Communes
Celebrating the Single Life: Making a Success of Life on Your Own
SYNDICATED COLUMN
Amazing Grace
(Scripps Howard News Service)
TELEVISION HOST
Amazing Grace
(Comcast)
Making a
Success of Marriage
Planning for Happily Ever After
David Yount
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2010 by David Yount
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yount, David.
Making a success of marriage : planning for happily ever after / David Yount.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-0009-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0011-1 (electronic)
1. Marriage. 2. Marital quality. 3. Marriage counseling. I. Title.
HQ734.Y855 2010
646.7'8—dc22 2009027626
(cid:2) ™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Rebecca
Love is eternal.
And for my Reader
Marriage is, for most of us, life’s greatest adventure: to commit ourselves to
loving a stranger for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all
others, until death do us part.
It would help immeasurably to possess a map to guide us through this
adventure. This is such a map.

Contents
Preface: Whatever Happened to Marriage? ix
Introduction: Against All Odds 1
1 A Fine Romance: Putting It Together for a Lifetime 9
2 Deciding to Marry: Finding the Love of Your Life 21
3 Fidelity: Being True to Each Other 35
4 Forbearance: Dealing with Differences 49
5 Finance: Budgeting for Bliss 63
6 Comfort and Care: Providing for Your Mutual Health and
Well-Being 81
7 Loving and Cherishing: There Are Many Parties to a
Good Marriage 97
8 Children: Surviving the Blessings of Offspring 111
9 Intimacy: Being One Flesh and One Spirit 127
10 Divorce: Surviving Separation, Finding Love Again 141
11 Permanence: Maintaining Marriage in Changing Times 155
12 Compatibility: Will Our Marriage Last? A Self-Test
for Couples 163
Appendix: How Long Has This Been Going On? A Short History
of Marriage 171
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments 183
vii
viii Contents
Notes 185
Selected Bibliography 197
Index 199
About the Author 203
Preface
Whatever Happened to Marriage?
J
ust as the U.S. population topped 300 million, demographers revealed that,
for the first time in history, fewer than half of the nation’s households are
headed by married couples. Today, the typical American adult is unmarried,
either living a solitary life or residing with unrelated persons.
So don’t be fooled by those smiling couples you see in newspaper wed-
ding announcements. Marriage, long in decline, is now a minority institution
and shows no signs of revival. It’s a cause for concern, and not just for senti-
mental reasons.
In recent decades, wedlock has fallen victim to a near 50 percent di-
vorce rate. Second and third marriages contracted after divorce suffer an even
bleaker success rate. Moreover, failure breeds failure, as children of divorce
carry their experience of dysfunctional family life into their own adult years.
Little wonder that many young Americans shy from making the mistakes of
their parents.
But is marriage itself a mistake? To be sure, contemporary Americans
retain their capacity to love and their desire to be loved. And no one would
argue that sexual attraction has waned in the twenty-first century. What has
happened is that those men and women who eventually do decide to wed, do
so much later than ever in history and with more fragile commitment.
Part of the reason is economic. Today, men and women alike typically
carry heavy burdens of personal debt through their twenties into their thirties
and beyond. Theoretically, two can live as cheaply as one, but not if both are
burdened by payments for college expenses and auto loans.
Accordingly, an American woman contemplating marriage realizes that
she will probably have to continue working outside the home, indefinitely
postponing a family while her biological clock keeps ticking down. She may
ix