I was very young, already mother to a toddler and felt as though I was “used goods.” I thought no man would want me, and so when someone asked me to marry him, decided that I had better say yes before he changed his mind. During the marriage ceremony, my soul gave one last ditch effort, hurling the equivalent of a mental “Hail Mary Pass” across my brain, shrieking, “What are you doing?!”  → Read More

No one needs to tell you that betrayal sucks. It’s a piercing pain formed from grief, anger and confusion. It steals your ability to trust, both in yourself and others. It calls everything into question and provides no easy answers. But turn that betrayal over, look to see what lies underneath. There are some upsides to betrayal.  → Read More

The bar is set dangerously low for our daughters when they rarely see relationships between men and women in which both parties hold equal value and power. Worse yet, as they move through adolescence they are facing plummeting self-esteem and constant bombardment with messages that their value is defined largely by their desirability to males. All of this raises the stakes significantly for us as parents.  → Read More

Fifty years ago, the pioneers of the War on Poverty saw no need to call for a strengthening of the American family as a critical component to combat- ing poverty. At the time, marriage—centered around motherhood and the man of the family—was still the prevailing norm for raising children and staving off poverty.  → Read More

My husband and I were friends before we started dating. At one point, during a retelling of a weekend of weird Match.com coffee dates and awkward singles events, he asked me what I was really looking for in a husband. I told him that was the problem. I wasn’t looking for a husband; I wanted a partner. We each had a failed marriage behind us, and those initial conversations blossomed into a dating relationship.As we were talking about a work problem one day, we came upon the idea of treating our relationship more like a performance contract between partners, one where you can choose to renew, renegotiate, or cancel on an annual basis. We weren’t sure if we were brilliant or insane.  → Read More

I’m often asked, “Jeff, I don’t want my daughter to make the same mistakes I did, so what should she know about finances before she gets married?” and “Jeff, what’s the most important thing I should find out about my fiancé‘s finances before the Big Day?” The exact questions can vary, but my responses are generally very similar.  → Read More

Although there are many variations by racial and ethnic status, income, and occupation in the division of housework and the values that couples hold about both of them doing these chores, one of the biggest predictors of a wife’s marital satisfaction is whether she feels that the division of housework is fair.  → Read More