How to improve your marriage without talking about it

As a child of the “Free to Be, You and Me,” generation, I freely admit to approaching any book in the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus vein — that is, a self-help book essentially designed to explain to women that men are different — with skepticism.

So when three separate girlfriends started talking about How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, I was tempted to dismiss the whole idea.

But these are smart women with pretty great spouses and they thought it was brilliant, so I eventually sent off for my copy to see what the fuss was about — and, I’ll admit, to see if there was anything I could apply to my own marriage of 15 years.

Having a read

Here’s a brief summary of the basic premises found in the book:

• Men and women have biological differences in their reactions to stimulus; these are enhanced through patterns of socialization. As a result, women largely seek to avoid fear, and men largely seek to avoid shame
• Women want to talk about their relationships to feel better; men feel worse when they talk about their relationships, and the two together lead to disconnection
• It’s disconnection, not lack of communication, which results in many issues between spouses
• The worst thing women do in their relationships to men is to shame them in many little (and sometimes larger) ways — correct them, make plans without consulting them, etc.
• The worst thing men do in their relationships is to leave their wives “married but alone” — failing to include their wives in their activities and decision-making.

The last half or so of the book outlines a number of very specific ways to reconnect without — of course — talking about the relationship.  And yes, the book is largely focused on women, under the premise — true, if you trust my sample of three, well, four, including myself.

More reconnection – yawn. But also, more reflection

Was reading the book life altering? Well, yes and no.

On the one hand, it made me feel a bit like, once again, all the responsibility for achieving a good relationship was being put on the wife. In fact, when I was getting to the section titled “Twenty Reasons to Have Sex When You Don’t Feel Like It,” I came across this quote from Sandra Tsing Loh’s polemic on modern (and midlife) marriage: 

“However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.”