Project Happily Ever After » Book Reviews

The Most Dangerous Post I’ve Ever Written

Alisa — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:36:52 +0000

I hope that got your attention.

Today a very important book will appear in a bookstore near you. It is a book that is guaranteed to fascinate you, make you think, and change your life. It’s also a book that might even save your life or the life of a loved one. And I’m not just saying this because I helped to write it.

Dangerous Instincts takes the tools of an FBI profiler and applies them to everyday life. Do you want to know how to read people, especially your spouse? Buy the book. Do you want to know how to get people to open up and tell you their deepest secrets? Buy the book. Do you want to know how to tell if someone — including your spouse — is lying? Buy the book. Do you want to know how to hire a house cleaner who won’t rob you, a financial planner who won’t pitch you Ponzi, or a computer tech who won’t hack you? Buy the book. Do you want to know how to protect your children at school, at home, at sleep overs, and while on the computer? Buy the book. Do you want to figure out if one of your neighbors is a psychopath, pedophile, or narcissist? Buy the book.

Do you want to make me happy? Buy the book and tell at least 10 of your friends that it changed your life.

FREE STUFF: Now for a very special offer. I’m giving away 10 free copies to 10 people who write to me or comment here and make the best case for deserving a free copy. If your case includes how you will help to spread the word about the book in some way, your case will get more merit in my eyes. Just saying. I have a family to feed. I’m sure you understand.

LEARN MORE about Dangerous Instincts at MaryEllenOToole.com.

CHECK OUT: 10 Reasons Not to Go With Your Gut and Dangerous Instincts That Put Dog Lovers In Danger.

THANK YOU to everyone who wrote to me and commiserated with me over my recent hard times. At the tail end of things, I ended up getting sick, too. I’m still digging out and trying to meet my work deadline. It will be a few more days before I can write a coherent post, but I feel your presence and thank you so much!

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Want to discuss Project: Happily Ever After at book club or your church group? Click here for an entertaining guide. Go to ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com for more marriage advice or to converse with other recovering divorce daydreamers.

How to Master the Art of Forgetting

Alisa — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:53:48 +0000

I brought Camille Noe Pagan‘s debut novel The Art of Forgetting with me on a recent trip to Colorado to visit my 96-year-old grandpa. I’m always a little nervous when I get on a plane with a book I have yet to crack open. Because I will be relying on the book to entertain me for nearly four hours straight, I usually like to be at least 20 or so pages into it–just to make sure it’s the kind of reading that will keep me engaged while my ears are popping and the plane is thumping around from turbulence.

Thankfully, it was.

More important for this blog’s purposes, I found lots of marital nuggets throughout its pages. The book is primarily about the enduring nature of female friendships, but it’s also about forgiveness and how it applies to all relationships. I rarely write in books because I think of them as Holy objects. Yet I found myself dog-earing pages and underlining various graphs. Then, as soon as I finished the book, I tracked down Camille and emailed her about answering some questions on the blog. She agreed!

What follows are her responses.

1. In the book, a friend counsels the main character, “Think about what you want out of a situation, not how you feel about it. You’ll get better results that way.” This struck me as wonderful marital advice, as most fights are about feelings and not about results. Can you tell us where this line came from? Where did you learn it and what led to you using it in the novel?

JP, my husband, said that to me a few years ago when I was frustrated about a project I was working on. I have a tendency to think (read: obsess) for a long time before taking action, which results in me feeling worse and worse about the situation. In this particular instance, I was being asked to do more work than I was being paid for. Instead of stewing, I asked to be compensated. When the individual I was working for said no, I didn’t focus on how ticked off I was; instead, thought about what I wanted out of that situation, and it was to not do the extra work. So again I asked, and that time, she honored my request. At the end of the whole thing, I was surprisingly not stressed, because I hadn’t gotten caught up in my feelings.

Anyway, I quickly realized that the “think about what you want” theory was really operating instructions for life, and I remind myself of it often—including when JP and I are having a disagreement. It works on an immediate level (i.e., instead of dwelling on the fact that I’m irritated that the lawn hasn’t been mowed, I simply ask him to do it) and in the larger scheme of things (i.e., my long term goal is to have a happy, healthy marriage, not a well-manicured lawn, and so I’m more willing to let it go).

2. In one scene, the main character meets a woman who is mourning the loss of her husband. She tells the main character that her husband had driven her crazy for 40 years, but now she misses him. She then goes on to say that humans must learn the “art of forgetting” in order to have happy relationships. Can you tell us where this idea came from? And have you used it to help yourself navigate your own relationships?

I thought of my book title almost immediately after I began writing it. I didn’t think, however, that I’d end up working those exact words into the book. Then, while I was writing the first draft, the scene you mention above came to me in an organic way, and fortunately, my editor at Dutton loved it.

Writing Forgetting was like therapy in many ways, because it made me acknowledge how much crap from my own past—family relationships, romantic relationships, friendships gone wrong—I’d been holding onto. My epilogue is a line from Lily Tomlin: “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” That’s one of the truest things I’ve ever read. It took writing an entire novel for me to fully absorb this, but you really can’t keep looking behind you and simultaneously enjoy where you’re at in life.

Camille

3. In another part of the book, someone gives the main character this advice: “It is the weight of someone else’s expectations that’s hardest to lose.” How true! What led to this realization for you in real life? And how do you think that plays out in relationships?

I’ve made very different choices than my parents did, and although they’re proud of me, some of those choices strained our relationship, especially when I was younger. For a while, my instinct was to try to sugar-coat things so they didn’t seem so “bad,” but as anyone who’s tried to please another person first can attest, this is a quick recipe for unhappiness.

The upside is that in my adult life, I’ve chosen relationships with people who like me for the person I am. Not only do I have great, healthy friendships, I’m also happily married, and I’m pretty sure this has everything to do with the fact that neither JP nor I expected each other to become radically different versions of ourselves after we said “I do.” (I’m not suggesting that it’s okay to get lazy and stop having goals after you get married. But if your spouse didn’t, say, have a sense of humor before your wedding, he’s not going to suddenly morph into Steve Carrell once you get hitched, you know?)

4. In one of the character’s very wise graduation speeches she says about life, “Life will happen either way. You can grab the wave and ride or be pulled under by the current.” This is another gem. Do you see this applying to relationships as well as to life? And is there a story behind the line?

While I was writing Forgetting, I was trying to think back to how my friends and I spoke/thought/acted in high school, and I remembered saying something very similar in the high school graduation speech that I gave. The difference between myself and Julia (the character who says this in the novel) is that Julia believed it; whereas I’m pretty sure that I, about to be thrown out of my very small pond, was really just trying to convince myself. Fifteen years later—and several jobs, cities, homes and children later—I’ve finally learned to embrace change.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

15 Minutes to a Better Marriage?

Alisa — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:55:05 +0000

Are you hoping that this post is going to be about this magical technique that will save your marriage in just 15 minutes?

If so, I’m sure you are not alone. We are a nation that has been conditioned to want and expect quick fixes. We don’t want to get rich slowly over our lifetimes. We want to win the lottery. We don’t want to slowly take off the pounds. We want to drop 10 pounds in 10 days.

Well, that approach just doesn’t work with marriage. At least it didn’t with mine. It takes many years for a marriage to go bad. It usually takes months to heal those wounds.

So what is this post about then? Did I just trick you into reading by writing a sensational headline?

Nope. This post is about a marital improvement concept developed by my colleague Dustin Riechmann at Engaged Marriage. Dustin and his wife lead busy, hectic lives. He knew how important it was to prioritize his marriage, but he had a hard time juggling that priority with the other priorities in his life—such as his job, his children, and his life. So Dustin decided to spend 15 uninterrupted minutes a day on his marriage to see what would happen. The results were so positive that he eventually developed an e-workbook around this approach that other couples can use.

I took a look at the workbook and I thought, “Wow, I think my husband would actually do these exercises with me.” They are simple exercises. They include conversation starters (try them over dinner when you are staring at one another in boredom) and bedroom enhancers—and a lot more. What follows are some questions I asked Dustin about the approach—and his answers.

Alisa: Many of my female readers tell me that their guys roll their eyes when they suggest various marriage exercises. Since you are a guy and you wrote this book, do you think women will have an easier time convincing their guys to do the exercises with them?

Dustin: Yes! As a guy (and an engineer at that), I put a big emphasis on practicality in all of the advice I give, which usually appeals pretty well to men. If your husband knows that spending 15 minutes with you doing what are often legitimately fun (and sometimes quite sexy) exercises together will actually make you happy, I bet he’d be willing to give it a try. Most of us guys get tired of the typical purely touchy-feely, feminine approach to marriage advice and just figure none of it is for us. But I hope that after trying out a few of these 15-minute “tasks,” your husband would realize this is actually some pretty powerful stuff that can improve how you relate to each other all day, every day.

Alisa: What are some effective ways for a woman to bring up that she wants to work through a book like this without getting the eye roll?

Dustin: I think it’s best to put it in terms that he’ll appreciate. Rather than saying he’s not romantic anymore, just tell him how you were thinking back to how great your sex life was as newlyweds before everything got so damn busy. Ask him if he misses those times too, and when he says he does (trust me, he does) you can then suggest that you have something that you think is worth trying. I’d emphasize it only takes 15 minutes and show him the table of contents so he can see it’s not some academic textbook and it addresses both sex and money…and it encourages the wife to Take the Lead in different aspects of the marriage. That should pique his interest.
I’d also let him know how much it would mean to you to have a little quiet time together each day, and how “romantic” you think it is that he would do this with you. In case you missed it, “romantic” here means it will make you feel appreciated and in the mood for great sex. You may actually have to say that last part aloud.

Alisa: Is there a type of marriage that you think will benefit most from the 15 minutes concept? Is there a type of marriage that will not benefit?

Dustin: This concept is definitely for busy couples who do not have serious problems but have lost some intimacy and connection to the busyness of life. It will help these couples find a little time to just be a couple and rekindle the communication and romance they had before things got so hectic. And it will show them how to use this small amount of Couple Time to have a better life, deeper intimacy and get control of their finances together. If a marriage is dysfunctional or having major issues, this is NOT a good book. It’s best for making a good marriage great and “refreshing” a solid relationship.

If you are interested in getting a copy of the 15 Minute Marriage Makeover, Dustin is offering ProjectHappilyEverAfter readers a 25 percent discount through 5 pm Friday of this week. Click here to visit EngagedMarriage and order the book. Enter the discount code PHEA.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Q&A: On women, love, and mother-daughter relationships

Alisa — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:55:08 +0000

I met novelist Ruth Pennebaker online a couple years ago and then in real life at a writer’s conference. Ruth is one of those people who, on paper, seems like a giant contradiction. For instance, she’s a liberal Texan. She’s also a former lawyer who is one of the most generous, funny, and gracious people I know.

I found myself both laughing and nodding my head as I read her novel Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough. It’s a tale of three generations of women living under the same roof. Or as Ruth puts it, it’s a tale of hell. But hell can be a glorious spectator sport, one that readers like me enjoy watching from the sidelines.

One scene toward the end of the book made me laugh so hard that my dog got scared and jumped off the bed. I’m not sure if I will ever be able to say the word “pantyhose” without smirking, especially if Ruth is around.

Because a sense of irreverent wisdom permeates Ruth’s every spoken and written word, I decided to interview her about her thoughts on marriage, life and mother-daughter relationships. To get the full flavor of Ruth, try to read her answers with a Texas accent.

1. In your book, you write about some very sad relationships. In fact, most of the men are perceived as jerks. Even Ivy’s late husband turns out to be someone most women would not want to be married to. Why is that?

They are pretty bad, aren’t they? Well, except for Bruce; I think that guy has some real potential. And I think Ivy’s husband, John, was very much a man of his generation, who earned a steady living and came home and wanted to watch TV without talking too much. The strong, silent type used to be big, remember? That was before we all started clamoring for sensitive men.

I think many of the women in the book have relied on men for too much, have wanted to be “saved” by the men in their lives — and that’s an unhealthy kind of reliance. It means the women aren’t really taking themselves seriously enough. I think you need to have a certain amount of confidence in yourself before you can have a good relationship with another person, romantic or not.

Ruth Pennebaker

2. I happen to know, however, that you have a strong marriage. What is your secret to marital success? Do you have wisdom to share?

I think both partners have to want to have a good marriage and to stick around and work things out during hard times. And I think they need a certain degree of luck in being married to someone they have good chemistry (sex, humor, similar ambitions, compatible world views) with. My husband and I were married young — in our early 20s; the younger you are when you get together, I think, the luckier you have to be. In many ways, we’ve grown up together and have changed in ways that are compatible. I have to credit luck and our own stubbornness for any success we’ve had. And that chemistry I mentioned.

3. Has your marriage ever gone through a rough patch. If so, what advice or encouragement do you have for others who are currently mired in one?

We’ve gone through a couple of rough patches and all I can say is that they were hell and I’m glad we made it through, battered, but intact. When you hit a really difficult time in a marriage, I think it either ends or you put it back together so that it’s better than it was before. But the two of you have to really want it. It has to be worth it to both of you.

And — to those who are in the middle of what I can only call a painful shit storm: You will laugh again. You will be better than before. You will be even more committed to your relationship if you go through a painful time together; you’re never going to forget what it cost you to work things out.

After all of this, my stock line is: I don’t think you’ve really been married if you haven’t wanted to strangle each other. I’m not entirely kidding.

Me (right), Ruth (next to me) and a couple other writer buddies at Ruth's book party in New York.

4. You write about three generations of women living under the same roof. This is a struggle that is common and one that many of my readers are going through. What missteps do the characters make in your book that you hope readers won’t make in their own?

Each of the three women, Ivy, Joanie and Caroline, is struggling with different problems in her own life. Sometimes, when you’re overwhelmed by difficulties in your life, you simply don’t have the wherewithal to be empathic toward others; you’re used up emotionally. I think it takes all of them most of the book to really notice and appreciate one another.

With any relationship, I think you need to use your imagination about what’s going on in the other person’s life so you can be more understanding. Ivy, in her 70s, is lonely and disoriented, an elderly woman in a world that worships youth; she probably doesn’t recall how hard it is to be an adolescent like Caroline, and she’s never had the experience of her daughter, Joanie, in being divorced and re-entering the job market. Both Joanie and Caroline, in turn, are too wrapped up in their own dilemmas to think about what it must be like to be old, like Ivy, and feel as if they’re not essential to the rest of the world.

Be kind to people, since everybody you know is fighting a great battle. Either Plato or Aristotle is supposed to have said that. I think it’s true. There are lots of invisible heroics going on in the world — if we just knew what was going on under the surface of others’ lives.

5. If Caroline–the teenage character in your book–were your real life daughter, what advice would you give her about men and relationships?

I know this sounds trite — but I do think you have to value yourself before you can find another person who will value you. And I do think it’s important to find work you love that feeds something in you. My work, writing, has been incredibly important to my life and well-being. I can’t imagine not having it.

6. Why do you think mother-daughter relationships are so mired in difficulty?

Women take their relationships seriously. We make time for our friends, we worry about them, we prize those we’re close to. When I bring up a problem in a friendship, I can see my husband’s eyes roll (oh, no! She’s talking about her friends again!). But I don’t care; these friendships are like oxygen to me. And the mother-daughter relationship is exponentially more intense than most friendships.

I should add that my own daughter turns 29 today. It’s a wonderful thing for me to have this new friend in my life now that she’s grown.

Readers: This winter has been nasty. You need a light read to lift your mood. Pick up Ruth’s novel, laugh, and then give her a good review. Read her blog. Or learn more about her.

Also, comment here about the nature of mother daughter relationships. Do you struggle in yours? Why? Or just comment about how you wish winter would end already.

UPDATES

* At the Yummy Mummy Club I wrote about ways to put the romance back in Valentine’s Day. You can also find ways to win a copy of PHEA.

* At Simple Mom I write about ways to teach your spouse to romance you. You can also win a copy of PHEA on this post.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

What does economics have to do with marriage?

Alisa — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:14:03 +0000

I often say that no one teaches us how to be happily married, that a good marriage is based on skills that no one teaches in home economics.

When I took home economics, I learned how to fry an egg, sew and a few other things. That’s all so 1950s, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong. Cooking is an important skill. Yet, a much more important skill for home, career and life is the skill of assertiveness. I wish they taught that in home economics, along with listening, forgiveness, and more.

Well authors Paula Szuchman, of the Wall Street Journal, and Jenny Anderson, of the New York Times, may not be on a crusade to change the educational system, but they are on a crusade to take the topic that they know best – economics – and apply it to home life. Rather than Home Economics, however, they have a wittier title for their new book. It’s called Spousonomics.

Since I often blame the economic principle of Supply and Demand as the cause for nearly all of the world’s problems—including the fall of book publishing—I was intrigued by their book and set out to interview the authors.

1. What led you to believe that economics could be applied to marriage? Was there a defining a-ha moment?

Paula: It came to me during the first year of my marriage when things were a little rocky. At one point, my husband drew a chart that took the pulse of our mood over the previous two weeks. It showed that we’d had a few “good” days with calm in the house, followed by some tense days, maybe a really bad argument, then more good days. Anyway, just looking at our relationship like that, visually, with data points, got me thinking whether there was a more straightforward, practical way of getting out of our rough patch. Also, it made us laugh. And laughter is always a good thing. This was around the time that the U.S. economy was about to implode. I work as a business journalist, so I’m just constantly surrounded by this stuff, and I kept making compelling connections between more and more economic principles and my own marriage. I sought out Jenny, who knows way more about business and economics than I do–but is equally obsessed with her marriage–and we started on our journey.

2. How have you used economics to keep your own marriage strong?

Paula: I actually do practice what I preach. My husband and I used to argue a lot more about housework, and our desire to have everything split down the middle. Now, we subscribe to the theory of comparative advantage, and mostly stick to those chores we’re either better at or we care more about. We just bought a new house, for example, and I handled all the upfront work of getting a mortgage, which was complicated because we’re also doing a gut renovation. It was a 6-month process and pure agony. From the outside, you could look at me and say, “Why the hell are you getting stuck with all the work? That’s not fair.” And I’d say, well, now we’ve finally closed on the house, and guess who’s doing all the work going forward? My husband. He’s taking the lead on the renovation itself and all the insanity of dealing with contractors and building permits, etc, which will probably last another six months. That’s more his “thing,” while dealing with financing stuff is mine. Doesn’t make it “fair” on any given day, but over time, it evens out, and make us happy.

Jenny: Incentives, for sure. I can be kind of harsh, which can come off as punishment. So if I ask my husband to do something and he doesn’t, I sort of go nuts. We’re both juggling so much, I’d always think: “I’m trying to do it all, why can’t you?” And I’d say as much. But he doesn’t respond well to being told he’s a jerk. Few people do. He responds to being trusted. Economists have shown that trust is a very effective incentive – even among strangers. Plug it into a marriage and it does wonders. So trusting that he will do the thing I want done, whether it’s building shelves or paying bills, is a lot more effective than nagging him or reprimanding him for not doing it. Sounds totally obvious, but I can’t say that I was acting on the obvious. Seeing the data made me try some patience. And lo and behold, most of the time, it worked beautifully.

3. You write about how supply and demand can be applied to the bedroom. Does this work for women who just don’t feel attracted to their husbands and are just not in the mood at all? If so, how?

We did a randomized, professionalized survey and the #1 reason people cited for not having sex was that they were too tired. That falls into the category you mention of not being in the mood. The way to get in the mood–especially if being tired is the problem–is to make it easier to have sex–to get in and out, so to speak– not harder. No candles and lavender scents (at least not on weeknights), and no serenading. Lower your costs (in terms of time and energy) and you will probably find that demand goes up.

As for not being attracted to your spouse, the question is, are you just used to seeing him every day so it’s hard to feel the old spark, or are you truly not attracted to him? If it’s the former, then consider a concept in economics called the hot-cold empathy gap. When we’re in “hot” state–meaning emotional and impulsive–we act one way, and when we’re in a “cold” state–rational and clear-headed–we act another. The problem is, we spend our days going in and out of hot and cold states. When we’re in a cold state, we make smart plans to do things like go to the gym, call our mothers-in-law and have sex with our spouse. But when the time comes to do those things, we might very well be in a hot state–to lazy or annoyed or distracted to follow through on those very wise plans we made earlier in the day. George Loewenstein, an economist at Carnegie Mellon who coined the term hot-cold empathy gap said when people have been married awhile, they don’t necessarily get aroused just by looking at their spouses. So when the time comes to put the moves on, they need to do things that GET themselves in the mood, otherwise they’ll just take a pass. Loewenstein’s prescription is that couples should have a rule: If one person wants it, the other concedes. Now if one of you has a much higher libido, you might have to work out a compromise for a frequency you can both live with, but at least stick to the plan, no matter your mood. People rarely regret having sex with the people they love.

But if these women really aren’t attracted to their husbands, that’s another story. They may have a bigger issues than our advice can address.

4. Many of the PHEA readers are just exasperated over the distribution of labor in the household and feel as if they are constantly nagging their spouses to do more housework. How would you suggest — through economics — they solve that problem?

A lot of couples want to divide the housework 50/50. It’s 2011 for chrissake, that’s the way it should be, right? But it’s not always the most efficient way. One system we recommend borrows from the theory of comparative advantage, with each spouse doing what he or she is relatively better at compared to other chores. “Better” can be anything from faster, to more thorough, to just more passionate about (some people really want their counters spotless, others don’t care about that as much as they care about an uncluttered living room).

So we heard a lot of wives say they do bills and their husbands do handy work (stereotypical but true). Some women take on all the dishes because their husbands don’t do them well enough (according to the women’s standards, that is), but then the husbands handled the laundry. Paula’s husband does all the sweeping. He hates dust bunnies, she could care less. Paula does the financial stuff because she cares a lot about when the bills get paid and knowing exactly what’s coming in and going out. In Jenny’s house there’s a cooking rule: whoever cooks, cleans. That means each person gets a night “off”. It took some prodding to get him to care as much about cleaning the counters, but once they had kids, and a nanny, it seemed considerate to make sure the house was clean at the start of the day.

5. How would you use economics to overcome a “stale” or “dead” marriage?

Economies, companies and marriages all have one thing in common: They are dynamic. That means they’re constantly changing, sometimes organically, sometimes in response to outside pressures. That means they have booms and they have busts, otherwise known as the “economic cycle.” The marriage that feels stale or dead might well be in a bust–and the good news is, busts needn’t be the end of the world. First of all, they’re inevitable, so recognizing that you’re just in a certain part of a natural cycle is the first step. Next is figuring out what you can learn from the bust to help you come out of it stronger. There’s a concept in economics that we feel really resonates called “creative destruction,” which essentially means innovating in the face of change–and sometimes blowing yourself up and rebuilding from scratch. That’s what IBM did when it realized mainframes would ultimately become dinosaurs and the company needed to start making PCs or go extinct. A lot of couples told us it was getting to the brink that made them take drastic measures to reinvent their coupled selves: changing jobs, moving cities, taking up tango (seriously), downsizing. Change is incredibly painful, but often rewarding. Eleanor Roosevelt said “do something every day that scares you.” Couples should try that, even if something new is just having dinner with a new couple. Ever realize how much better behaved you are in front of new people?

Learn more at Spousonomics.com.

Buy the book.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

How has PHEA changed your life?

Alisa — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:21:15 +0000

Many of you have written me, tweeted me, Facebooked me and channeled me about your thoughts about Project: Happily Ever After. Please consider leaving your thoughts here, on this post, in the comments, too. (I would also love your reviews here on the amazon page, as well, and anywhere else on the web where books are reviewed). I would like to have one spot where you all talk about how the book and how it has affected you. What led you to read it? Has it changed your marriage? Would you recommend it to a friend and why? Did your spouse read it? Who do you think would benefit the most from this book? What about the book surprised you the most? Have you started your own Project: Happily Ever After since reading the book and, if so, how is it working for you?

Note: On Tuesday I will start the series of posts about your biggest marital problems. If you have no already told me about your biggest marital problem, there’s still time to do so.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Fits, Starts and Matters of the Heart

Alisa — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:40:37 +0000

I love this book for many reasons.

First, it’s a book about hope, dreams and teamwork. A few years ago, a few freelance writers were talking about how markets for essays had dried up. What had once paid $2,000 for a work was now paying $150. Even the $150 markets were few and far between.

These writers had been published in O, Woman’s Day, the New York Times, Ladies Home Journal and many other impressive publications.

Yet, they were struggling to find editors who were willing to buy their work. In case you are not aware, the economy has hit writers particularly hard. Every single industry that feeds freelance writers is shrinking. Book publishing, magazine publishing and newspaper publishing are all going through major change, major hard times, and major cut backs. And even though digital publishing is growing, it’s growing thanks to the sweat and labor of people who are willing to write for free or for 2 cents a word.

As a result, many of my writer friends have gone into other businesses. They are now the people who greet you at the door when you walk into a clothing or chocolate store.

Some other writer friends, however, did something daring. They decided to cut the middleman out of the equation. They rallied together and created an anthology. Writers submitted their best work to this book—with zero guarantees that they would ever make a cent off their work. They submitted these essays with a mixture of courage and faith—the same mixture of courage and faith that is required to start a marriage project.

Other writers volunteered to edit the work. Still others volunteered to design it and to get it available in bookstores. Others (including me) volunteered to market it.

Fits, Starts and Matters of the Heart represents what a group of people can do with faith, a little hope and a lot of determination.

That’s why I love it, but it’s not why you should read it. No, you will want to read it because of the words. Fits, Starts and Matters of the Heart contains 28 essays on topics such as family, friendship, love, grief, and even pets.

I enjoyed many of the essays, but my favorite was Emma Johnson’s “In Defense of Back Hair.” The essay is a love letter to her hairy husband, a man whose exfoliated fur balls drift over the couple’s floor and clog their shower drain. Yes, the essay is funny, but I loved it more for its essence. It is love. Emma’s love for her hairy husband is the kind of love that all of us can aspire to have in our own relationships. It’s not fairy tale love. It’s real—hairy crop circles and all.

And whenever I need a hopeful dose of reality, I read and re-read her essay again.

This brings us to the end of the Marriage Books You’ll Love Series. I’ll give you all one more day to comment on this first marriage books post (click through) to win a copy of Project: Happily Ever After.

But there’s more. Theo Pauline Nestor has offered to give away a signed copy of How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed. If you’d like to win a copy of that book, comment on this post about the following: What is one thing you love about your spouse that other people might not love as much? In other words, Emma Johnson loves her husband’s back hair. What is the equivalent of that in your marriage?

There’s still time to enter the Fabulous PHEA Giveaway! Be entered to win a Kindle, a stay at a B&B, marriage counseling, a vibrator and more with proof of purchase of Project: Happily Ever After.

Learn more about Project: Happily Ever After. Watch the trailer and get a sneak preview into the book.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Can’t Think Straight

Alisa — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:19:12 +0000

Apparently Kiri Blakeley and I were destined to become friends. Kiri used to write regularly for Forbes Woman. One day, about a year ago, my phone rang. I picked it up. It was Kiri. She interviewed me about something or other. I think it was a story about celebrities and how they suck at staying married.

Something like that. Then almost as soon as I was on the phone with Kiri, I was off it. That’s how things generally go with reporters, I’ve found.

A few months later, I met Jonathan Alpert, a Manhattan psychotherapist, at a TV station. We were both there to talk about Tiger Woods. Somehow one thing led to another and he told me about this woman that he thought I should meet. It was Kiri.

As it turned out, Kiri had a book coming out. As it turned out, I had a book coming out. As it turned out, both of our books were coming out on the same date: December 28^th. (Cue the music from Twilight Zone now).

Kiri and I decided to make the best of this peculiar situation. I sent her my book. She sent me hers. We agreed that I would blurb her book. She would blurb mine.

I Facebook friended her. She Facebook friended me. It was like that. Love at first interview, as they say.

Anyway, as I read Kiri’s book, a few thoughts occurred to me.

Thought #1: Dang, this girl is brave. I sweated over the one sex scene in my book and about whether it would be okay to use the phrase “went down on” when referring to something I did with my husband. Kiri proved to me that I had nothing to worry about. More important, she proved to me that one could write about having sex in a very detailed way with very detailed words and still look you in the eye the next morning.

Thought #2: I had to read Kiri’s book in private, with the book in one hand and a vibrator in the other. I do not exaggerate. It’s a great story, but it’s vibrator worthy, too. If you are struggling with your sex drive, read this book. You’ll be cured.

Thought #3: I never want to be single ever again. And if, for some freak reason, I become single, I am not going to date. I’ll just become a nun or something, even though I’m not Catholic.

This last thought is the reason I’ve decided to include Can’t Think Straight in the Marriage Books You’ll Love series. Can’t Think Straight tells the story of the year Kiri spent recovering from the news that her fiance and boyfriend of 10 years was gay. That’s right. The guy she was about to marry—the guy that she thought was perfect for her in every way—one night said, “Honey we need to talk.” That conversation ended with her realizing that her boyfriend was not attracted to her because he was attracted to hairy men instead. (Watch this video of Kiri reading the first chapter of the book for all of the details of how he came out).

After that split, Kiri spent a year rediscovering her sexuality. She went on a wild dating spree—the kind that my unhappily married mind fantasized about quite often.

I don’t know about you, but when I was unhappy in my marriage I had all sorts of wonderfully unrealistic thoughts about what the dating world was like. For instance, I thought the dating world was filled with these hot, sensitive guys who knew how to cook.

Apparently, this isn’t the case. Or, at least, it’s not the case in Brooklyn. Now, let me tell you something. Kiri is drop dead gorgeous. And she, at that time, was working an enviable job at Forbes magazine. She was quite the catch by anyone’s standards.

Yet, the guys she dated were just, in a word, ugh. Slimy. Upsetting. Sorry excuses for men is what they were.

Kiri somehow found every sorry excuse for a man in New York, and she dated every single one of them.

I’m not going to spoil the ending. I will only say that she did learn a few things about herself and about men during that year.

And I’m going to say this: thank God I’m married.

I’m going to make my husband a happy man tonight. How about you?

Next up in the Marriage Books You’ll Love series: Fits, Starts and Matters of the Heart.

Note: At 2 pm EST Tuesday Dec. 7th, I’ll be on FoxNews.com Live with Courtney Friel to talk about Project: Happily Ever After. Tune in at this link.

Learn more about Project: Happily Ever After. Watch the trailer and get a sneak preview into the book.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Marriage Books You’ll Love: How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed

Alisa — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:35:52 +0000

Okay friends: this is a divorce book. I originally picked it up because I knew that a few of my readers were going in that direction. They’d asked me for advice. Divorce is not something from my experience. So I decided to read up. I wanted a book I could recommend to others when they asked, “Do you have any advice for people going through a divorce?”

How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed is that book. But this book is an important read for people who are fighting to hold their marriages together, too. Here’s why. Many times in life, when we are struggling with a given situation, we create a fairy tale image of a different situation that we imagine would be much better for us.

For instance, single folks who are lonely generally have a fairy tale image of marriage. They imagine that meeting and marrying the right person will solve all of their problems.

Conversely, unhappily married folks generally have a fairy tale image of the single life. Or maybe that’s just me. When my marriage was bad, I thought being single would be freeing, fun, exciting, and just what I needed.

That’s why it’s important to read memoirs like How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed (as well as Can’t Think Straight, which is next up in this series). Such books shatter these myths.

How to Sleep Alone shatters the myth by painting a realistic picture of divorce. You travel side by side with Theo Pauline Nestor as she makes the decision to end her marriage. Folks: I don’t want to give too much away here because the beginning of the book is artfully written and contains a twist. For that reason, I’m not going to tell you why Theo needed to get out of her marriage. I’m just going to ask you to trust me. Theo was in one of the few types of marriages that most people would declare terminally broken.

Theo Pauline Nestor

So she ended it. What follows is how she grieved the loss of that marriage. You travel with her through shock, denial, anger, frustration, exhaustion, loneliness, yearning, guilt, shame, and sadness. After many years of marriage, you get a first hand glimpse of what it feels like to cleave yourself from another person. You read about the dinners she eats alone when the kids are with dad. You can commiserate with how hard it must be for her to ask her ex to help her start the mower (because she’s not strong enough to do it herself) or help her with rodent control.

If your marriage is ending, reading this book will be like talking to a friend who has already done it—that friend who listens and realistically tells you that you will be okay but that this is gonna be dang hard. (Note: if your marriage is ending, I recommend you connect with Theo personally on her Facebook page). If your marriage is struggling, reading this book will feel like Theo has wrapped her hands over your shoulders and is shaking you and saying: Singlehood is not the walk in the park that you imagine!

Theo ended up working on her stuff and becoming a stronger person outside of marriage. You might end up working on your stuff and becoming a stronger person inside your marriage.

Either way, if you want to get to happy, you’re going to have to work on your stuff.

Next up in Marriage Books You’ll Love: Can’t Think Straight.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Olive Kitteridge

Alisa — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:32:45 +0000

I read Olive Kitteridge over the summer. I read it because I posted on Facebook that I’d just read The Help and that I was somewhat certain the book had ruined novels for me. After reading The Help, all novels suck. They suck because The Help is the perfectly written novel. The characters are beautifully developed. The plotting is exquisite. You are transported into the South.

How could I ever read another book again? Everything would pale in comparison, wouldn’t it?

My friend Sheryl Kraft told me in no uncertain terms that everything would not pale in comparison. She told me to pick up a copy of Olive Kitteridge. Sheryl is a smart woman. I read her health blog and I follow every tip she delivers. If she told me to read Olive Kitteridge, well, dang it, I was going to read Olive Kitteridge. (Did I punctuate the previous sentence correctly? I struggled with that.)

I picked up the book. I don’t think I moved until I put down the book. Well, perhaps I went to the bathroom. I’m not sure.

I loved a lot about Olive Kitteridge. (The only thing I didn’t love was this: the word Kitteridge is hard to type without making a typo. Did I get through this post without making one?) What I loved the most, though, was this. Every single marriage portrayed in the novel is both wonderfully endearing and simultaneously wonderfully flawed. This novel gives you a realistic lifetime portrait of Olive’s marriage–and a realistic snapshot of several others. Every single marriage in the book–as are most marriages in real life–houses secrets, stress, and problems that are not necessarily visible to the outside world. At the same time, you can see quite clearly how these husbands and wives completely love one another.

It’s beautiful. You all ought to read it. Sheryl’s orders.

Next up in the marriage books series: Dear John, I Love Jane.

Learn more about Project: Happily Ever After. Watch the trailer and get a sneak preview into the book.

Learn more about Alisa's book, the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to falling back in love.

To find out how the book has changed lives click here.

Project Happily Ever After » Book Reviews

The Most Dangerous Post I’ve Ever Written

How to Master the Art of Forgetting

Camille 3. In another part of the book, someone gives the main character this advice: “It is the weight of someone else’s expectations that’s hardest to lose.” How true! What led to this realization for you in real life? And how do you think that plays out in relationships?

15 Minutes to a Better Marriage?

Q&A: On women, love, and mother-daughter relationships

1. In your book, you write about some very sad relationships. In fact, most of the men are perceived as jerks. Even Ivy’s late husband turns out to be someone most women would not want to be married to. Why is that?

Ruth Pennebaker 2. I happen to know, however, that you have a strong marriage. What is your secret to marital success? Do you have wisdom to share?

3. Has your marriage ever gone through a rough patch. If so, what advice or encouragement do you have for others who are currently mired in one?

5. If Caroline–the teenage character in your book–were your real life daughter, what advice would you give her about men and relationships?

6. Why do you think mother-daughter relationships are so mired in difficulty?

What does economics have to do with marriage?

1. What led you to believe that economics could be applied to marriage? Was there a defining a-ha moment?

2. How have you used economics to keep your own marriage strong?

3. You write about how supply and demand can be applied to the bedroom. Does this work for women who just don’t feel attracted to their husbands and are just not in the mood at all? If so, how?

4. Many of the PHEA readers are just exasperated over the distribution of labor in the household and feel as if they are constantly nagging their spouses to do more housework. How would you suggest — through economics — they solve that problem?

5. How would you use economics to overcome a “stale” or “dead” marriage?

How has PHEA changed your life?

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Fits, Starts and Matters of the Heart

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Can’t Think Straight

Marriage Books You’ll Love: How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed

Marriage Books You’ll Love: Olive Kitteridge

Camille

3. In another part of the book, someone gives the main character this advice: “It is the weight of someone else’s expectations that’s hardest to lose.” How true! What led to this realization for you in real life? And how do you think that plays out in relationships?

Ruth Pennebaker

2. I happen to know, however, that you have a strong marriage. What is your secret to marital success? Do you have wisdom to share?