marriage is not a mistake

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My thoughts on "The 7 Best Things Happy Couples Do...plus one" by John and Linda Friel

I stopped reading this a little over halfway through. despite the simplicity "7 best things" implies, the authors try to cram too many concepts into the book without clearly progressing from point to point.

I also didn't like the quotes the Friels used by a clinician named Salvador Minuchin - "And so you see, all marriages are mistakes, that then we spend time repairing; and some of us are more successful in repairing than others." They quote this in the introduction, and then again in one of the chapters with a small disclaimer that marriages aren't really mistakes. umm.. wasn't that the whole premise of Munuchin's statement? So if the authors do not consider marriages mistakes, it seems counterproductive to endorse a statement like that just to say, 'see everyone is repairing their relationships over time.'

Mistakes are made in marriages, but all marriages are not mistakes. Couples struggle enough to make their marriages work without being encouraged to use the excuse that it was just an oops to start. People may use poor judgement in choosing their spouse, but marriage isn't the problem. Let's try to set people up for success; that their marriage is something magical (something the authors themselves promote), and that by using some critical thinking and hard work they can prove it was the best non-mistake they ever made =)