Whatever works. Business news editor Paula Szuchman says looking at her marriage from an economic perspective—for her, a familiar vocabulary—persuaded her to stop nagging and rescued her marriage: "a relationship bubble that burst." As she tells it in an essay for Newsweek, nagging her husband about closed cabinets was no incentive. It backfired in more and opener cabinets. When she dropped the nagging, he fixed the problem on his own. They didn't divide housework 50/50, but maximized efficiency by specializing, a la Adam Smith. Her favorite concept? Understanding loss aversion. Go to bed angry, she says, and avoid the arguments that escalate just because neither of you wants to lose. "Nine times out of ten," she says, "the dispute gets resolved that morning."

I'd agree with that last piece of advice (although I'd modify it by saying that nine times out of ten, the dispute has evaporated by the next morning). I agree with much of the relationship advice Szuchman offers there, and am sure I'd agree, too, with the techniques Szuchman and co-author Jenny Anderson propose in their book, Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage and Dirty Dishes (reviewed here on Bloomberg News, and discussed, along with Jess' great Home Economics series, at a recent DoubleX event). (I might draw the line at making sex "cheaper"—by decreasing the cost in time—to "sell" more.) But I'm intrigued less by the advice itself (clever and timely as the presentation is) than by the application of yet another discipline to to family life. Spousonomics reminds me of those who would use the words of Cesar Milan, Dog Whisperer, in raising their kids or apply the principles of animal training to their marriages.  Weird as it sounds, for some people, it works. So why not economics?

Sure, economics has a reputation as a dry discipline. But maybe any discipline at all is better than none when it comes to focusing on marriage and family. You could apply the seven habits of highly effective fame. You could turn to the Bible. You could probably go all David Allen on your marriage and Get Things Done, or de-clutter it when It's All Too Much. The key is surely less the particular advice than the desire to follow any advice at all. Can economics save your marriage? I think it can—if your marriage really wants to be saved.

Tags: marriage, marriage advice, spousonomics

Emily, I've definitely been following the hubbub over the New York Times "homewreckers" Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla. The outrage over this Vows column even made its way to the Today Show this morning.

What surprises me is not that two people dumped their spouses for each other (though the detail that the foursome took vacations together hits you right in the solar plexus), and it's not that lots of people, like you, were upset by the story (think of the children! was a common refrain), or even that the Times chose to run the story (it's juicy!). It is that Riddell and Partilla did not anticipate this sort of backlash, as is evident from that New York Post quote from Partilla. This baffles me. Gawker has a weekly column devoted to scoring-slash-judging the New York Times wedding section. There's a website that allows you to search for words in the section as well. Beyond internet commentating, the Times wedding section is a damn cultural touchtone, mentioned everywhere from Sex and the City to David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise. And that's not even considering what their kids are going to have to deal with now that this was prominently featured in the Times' style section. As the Hairpin's Edith Zimmerman asks, "When do kids start Googling?"

Riddell and Partilla were smart not to agree to go on the Today Show to talk about this, but that didn't stop them from bringing on a slew of shrinks to discuss the column further. My personal feeling is that lives are messy, but that it's pretty heartless to blare the messiness to the New York Times when there are so many other people involved. When you do that, there are going to be personal—and Internet—repercussions. Check it out in the clip below.

Tags: carol anne riddell, divorce, john partilla, marriage, new york times vows

I would love to know what other DoubleXers make of the featured wedding this week in the Vows section of the New York Times—the story of the cheating couple who met at their kids’ preschool and dumped their spouses for each other. To me, one of the most damning facts was that they would agree to be featured, telling their sordid love story to the world, further humiliating their discarded spouses. In 2006 Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla met at a nursery school class where their kids were enrolled. He had three kids, she had two, and they immediately clicked. The two families became fast friends, even vacationing together. All the while Riddell and Partilla were developing an extreme case of the hots for each other. There is nothing unusual about this. It’s easy to fantasize about a better life with the attractive spouse of your friend, the person who is not at the moment nagging you about the bills, or picking up the kids, or all the other stuff that reduces one’s partner’s allure.

Riddell and Partilla found themselves obsessed and longing for each other. There is nothing in the Times story to indicate there was anything wrong with either marriage or their existing spouses (both Riddell and Partilla express regret for the pain they caused them).* They simply realized they liked each other better. There are three basic things people do in these circumstances. One is to conclude one’s fantasy life is getting out of control, limit contact with the object of one’s desire, and count on the lust eventually passing. (That’s got my vote.) Two is to act on the lust, have an affair, but try to keep the whole thing a secret so as to not blow up two marriages. Three is to decide blowing up the marriages is worth it to be together, despite the enormous collateral damage to one’s spouse and children.

During the agonizing break ups of their existing marriages, Partilla said he asked Riddell for assurance that the kids would be all right. She promised him they will be great. Oh really? Let’s hope they eventually will be, but those are five traumatized little people whose faith in adults, in love, in their understanding of the world has been forever shaken. I wonder if Riddell and Partilla, before they set off on their new lives, thought about how having five unhappy kids swirling around three households might put a damper on their fairy tale. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a relationship to justify the emotional agony, the financial expense of what they’ve done. It’s a sign of how oblivious these people are to the effect they have on others that they have been blindsided by the onslaught of hostile reaction to their story. The Times comment section is full of denunciations, and Partilla told the New York Post, "I think if we had had an indication afterwards of the nerve it would have struck, we obviously would not have shared our life in any way publicly."

*Update: Carol Anne Riddell's ex-husband, Bob Ennis, spoke to Jeff Bercovici at Forbes.com. Ennis called the Times column "a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history for two people who are both members of the media industry." Ennis also says he was most upset that the Times featured a photograph of his daughter along with the article.

Tags: carol anne riddell, cheating, john partilla, marriage, New York Times wedding section

Hanna, I agree with you that declining rates of marriage are the result of largely good shifts in society such as female independence and sexual liberation.  I'll add that divorced levels spiked in 1960s-80s, and those of us who grew up in that era are just way more cautious about entering contracts that are so hard to leave if necessary. It's good that people are being freed to think more carefully about the commitments they make. The National Marriage Project that released the study lamenting the decline of marriage in the lower-middle class is a more scrupulous organization than most right-wing think tanks, but it is still are a right-wing think tank and its mission is to restore the patriarchy to a perceived '50s-era heyday.  So I take all its conclusions with a grain of salt.

As an obstinately unmarried person who grew up the high-school-educated middle class that NMP and Ross Douthat are condescendingly wringing their hands over, I can say with some confidence that I don't get why anyone cares if marriage is on its way out.  It actually makes sense that not marrying is a practice that's moving up the income ladder, probably at the same damn rate that income inequality is spreading.  There used to be two reasons to get married: social condemnation of sex outside of marriage and economic stability.  Both those are gone as reasons, so why on earth would you add the risk of divorce to your life when you don't  have to?  Marriage confers no real protections if you don't really have much personal wealth. Nor does it seem like it's necessary if you're both financially independent and capable of keeping your finances separate.

Sure, marriage chauvinists can point to things such as marriage's impact on health and well-being, and to the fact that married men are less anti-social. I'm skeptical, though, because these kinds of studies lump all nonmarried people into one group.  People who are in long term, committed relationships without that piece of paper are put in the same group as people who've never held a relationship together.  I want to see apples to apples comparisons.  How do unmarried people who've been together for five or 10 years hold up next to people who have been together that long but tied the knot in their first year or two together? That people are giving up on marriage doesn't mean they've given up on love or commitment.  In fact, many of us believe our commitments are made stronger by the fact that they are only to each other and not to an institution.

Tags: cohabitation, marriage, national marriage project

Word of warning to men who think it's cute to surprise your girlfriend with flashy public proposals: Many in your often captive audience are inclined to wonder if you went with this route because you hope the fear of being booed will incline her to stuff her doubts and say yes. Or that you're not only afraid of rejection, but a self-aggrandizing spotlight-hog to boot. Providence mayoral candidate Chris Young just reinforced these sneaking suspicions, plus created a few more, by proposing to his girlfriend in the middle of a mayoral debate.

There's little doubt this was a stunt proposal; Young and his girlfriend Kara Russo have been presenting as engaged for at least a month now. Plus, Young is an irritating human being who needs to have attention at all points in time generally, it seems, which is why he does things like insist on using his TV appearances to promote his rock band. He's just exploiting the fact that most people seem to think that public proposals are romantic in order to capture the news cycle.

Public proposals are romantic in the way that Las Vegas is tastefully understated. The popularity of the flashy proposal—and the ever-expanding wedding-industrial complex in general—indicates that Americans are a nation of people suffering from low self-esteem, a people who need to have overblown validation from large crowds to feel better about ourselves. Why can't the occasional bout of karaoke satisfy the diva inside the American soul? I fear that the way the trends are heading, it's only a matter of time before the consummation of the marriage becomes a public event, complete with expensive accessories and perhaps a consummation planner to help your consummation get even more YouTube hits than that of your friends.

Tags: chris young, public proposals, wedding-industrial complex

One of my favorite weekend games lately is to look for ways in which different parts of the Sunday NYT weirdly relate to each other. There was the Sunday in June on which a front page story told of a government crackdown on child farm labor while the Times Magazine ran an idyllic photo of 6- and 7-year-old Sarah and Molly Brown helping out on the family dairy farm in Oxford, Miss.

Last Sunday, my dissonant pairing was Daphne Merkin's woeful cover story on the vicissitudes of 40 years of therapy and a story in the business section about how to spend money to make yourself happier. The lesson from a study of nine categories of consumption was that "the only category to be positively related to happiness was leisure: vacations, entertainment, sports and equipment like golf clubs and fishing poles." A trip to Italy or the beach sure seemed more joyous than Merkin's woeful tales from the analyst's couch. Vacations also apparently give more happiness bang for the buck than marriage: "A $20,000 increase in spending on leisure was roughly equivalent to the happiness boost one gets from marriage,” said the author of the study, University of Wisconsin professor Thomas DeLeire. My husband wanted to know why no one mentioned that earlier.

Tags: Happiness, marriage, psychoanalysis, therapy, vacation

I tend to put cryonics believers into the same category I do Ayn Rand enthusiasts swearing they're "going Galt" or people who dwell on the possibility that they may never have been born: people whose egos have grown to a size that's crippling them, making them unable to see that the rest of the world is less sure that we cannot survive without them. While I feel pity for their plight, especially as it's usually accompanied by a distinct lack of social skills, I don't want to spend my time around them. I can't even imagine the hell that is being married to them, and so I was fascinated to read this New York Times Magazine article by Kerry Howley about what cryonics enthusiasts call the "hostile wife" syndrome. Fascinated not because wives are hostile—no duh—but because wives exist in the first place, something I wouldn't bet on with many people who've convinced themselves that the people of the future are so interested in what they have to say that they'll come up with magical technologies to revive dead, permanently damaged brain tissue.

I immediately sent the piece to Lindsay Beyerstein because I knew she'd find the whole thing as hilariously repulsive as I do, and she posted on it, comparing being married to a cryonics enthusiast to being married to an evangelical Christian who is sure he'll be in heaven but you won't be with him. The arguments against cryonics are pretty hard to argue with: 1) It's so close to impossible that it could ever work to revive completely dead brain tissue that's hundreds of years old that it's not worth even entertaining the idea; 2) It's stupid to think that the business you're forking cash over to will still be around in hundreds of years after the enthusiasm for cryonics dies off, as it will; 3) Belief that you personally deserve to have immortality denied the rest of the human race is insufferably narcissistic.

It turns out that enthusiasm for cryonics, like enthusiasm for Ayn Rand, is quite the dudely enterprise.  (I'd also imagine there's a lot of crossover between these two groups of enthusiasts, much like you get with fixed gear bicycle fans and vegans.) According to Howley, male cryonics enthusiasts outnumber female ones 3 to 1. I suppose this shouldn't be surprising. Men have the option, especially in our society, to be way more out of touch with their biological realities than women do, and this can make it that much easier to create elaborate fantasies about how the constraints of biology, including decay and death, don't apply to you. Though I confess to being surprised that a cryonics fan can stay married to a woman who counsels the dying and their families for a living, as you get with the couple interviewed in this article. You'd think he'd learn a little more through osmosis about how death and decay are a process and have nothing to do with the cryonic image of death as being not so different than simply putting your computer on "hibernate."

Tags: cryonics, hostile wives, scams

Blogging for the New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope reports on research demonstrating that Americans increasingly don't see children as a necessary part of creating a happy marriage. She offers a couple of reasons for this—the explosion of support for same-sex marriage and the decrease in time spent over an individual's life as the parent of minor children—but I think it may be even simpler than that. It might just be that people's understanding of parenthood is aligning itself more with empirical realities. Scientific realities demonstrate having children in your house makes you less happy than not having children in your house.

The field of happiness studies produces many counterintuitive results, but nothing receives as much resistance than the repeated studies that show having children dramatically lowers the amount of happiness you experience in your day-to-day life, and particularly that children lower the amount of happiness in marriages (especially for women). I was slightly surprised when I first read about this phenomenon in Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling On Happiness, not because my cheerfully childless self was surprised, but more that I was surprised that someone was willing to publish such incendiary research.

But the content struck me as obvious once you read it. I once had a friend who had a charming tendency, when we were hanging out and having fun, to say, "Insert 3-year-old." It was a reminder to herself and anyone else who might find themselves thinking about how fun it might be to have kids to remember how much you give up to do so—not just the spontaneity and fun times, but also the strong risk that kids will upset the balance of your relationship and your career, turning formerly wonderful things to a source of stress and misery. For those who are willing to take that risk, more power to you. But it shouldn't be surprising that more and more people have no problem with those who take the opt-out option.

Photograph of crying baby by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images.

Tags: Happiness, parenthood

Tara Parker-Pope starts her New York Times piece on the science of successful marriages by repeating the truism that the only people who really know what’s going on in a marriage are the two people who are in it. But is this always true? Many of us have had been in the uncomfortable position of knowing a couple in which one partner thinks he or she is happily married, but everyone else knows the other partner is deep into an affair. Madeline Albright wrote in her memoir that when her husband confessed he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce, she was astounded to discover her marriage wasn’t a great success. I’ve known couples in which it seemed obvious that one of the partners was gay, and when the gay spouse came out, the other one was completely blindsided. I was friendly with another couple who had a long, seemingly idyllic marriage—they were always holding hands and cooing at each other. Then he got arrested for prescription drug abuse, and it turned out he’d been a long-time addict, and she had no idea—and the marriage collapsed. Of course, I recognize the people in a marriage do, in general, have a better idea of what’s going on that any outsider—but not always.

Image of wedding rings by Litho Printers/Flickr Creative Commons.

Tags: affairs, divorce, marriage

Hanna, Emily, I have to say that I'm flabbergasted at how heartbroken the world seems to be over the Gores splitting up. Hanna, I can see why you'd call them your "marital heroes," or Emily, why you'd say that this separation upends "one’s belief about marriage." But I can't get behind the outpouring of grief. I find myself impressed by their courage.

Maybe it's because I wasn't invested in the Gores in the first place. On the contrary, I never forgave Tipper Gore for going on a rampage against popular music in the '80s that no doubt made it possible for the parents many of my youthful friends to feel justified in snatching away beloved records. But I adore Al Gore and his tireless crusade to raise awareness of global warming. When you have such differing opinions of the individuals in a relationship, even if you don't know them personally, it's a bit of a relief when they break up. Your worldview seems a little more orderly.

But I suppose I just really object to the discourse in which marriages are deemed a success if they end in death and a failure if they end in divorce. It turns marriage into a competitive sport and shames divorcees for making what was usually the best choice for them. It's also misleading. Everyone's been around those longstanding couples who loathe each other but are prevented from ending it because of inertia. I can't support any system that privileges couples who snipe at each other every chance they get over those who decide to part ways instead of making themselves and everyone around them miserable.

Tags: al gore, divorce, tipper gore