TLC Book Tour - Review - Marriage Confidential - Pamela Haag

Title:    Title: Marriage Confidential The Post-Romantic age of the Workhouse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses and Rebel Couple who are rewriting the Rules

Author:  Pamela Hagg

Review:  I was super excited to get Marriage Confidential in the mail in hopes of reading something fun and maybe even a little inspiring to help keep my marriage alive. I will be honest I am not sure I can be objective in writing this review because of how I feel about marriage and how she feels about marriage.

After the first few chapters I realized this author and I have nothing in common and I found it almost impossible to read her book let alone understand her writing style. I felt like I was reading a first year college students research paper on marriages and the student was trying to come up with large and ridiculous words to describe peoples emotions and actions. Here is an exmple I found stange as well as other reviews of this book. "Emily loves to play `family,' and in this game, she ventriloquizes her parents' marriage." I think a more accurate word would be role playing.  Most children role play what they see and hear and that is why parents should always be careful what they say and do because our children learn by watching us.

On page 117 she write, "The strength of family values is weakness of marriage, once it opts to have children. By this I mean that marriage as marriage, rather than as synonym for "parents" or"parental responsibilities," has withered into a forgotten or at least ancillary bond.  Marriage may either be adult centered or child centered, but fewer are truly family centered in the sense that they harmonize marriage, "parenthood and adulthood.""  I feel by making a bold statement like that, she needs to have proof to back up her remarks, which she has none of.

On page 126 she mentions "In Japanese, the word for "Hell" translates loosely into "No Space"."  My husband speaks fluent Japanese and I asked him if that was true and he said " No it would translate Ground Prison, Earth Jail or Spirit Prison among other things."  I started to wonder how much research was done when writing this book and how much hearsay or personal opinion is used in place of research. 

Most of her stories are very negative about marriage and at one point even saying "We do not normally mate for life after our first marriage." Meanwhile, Haag goes on about how "good old boys" do not really want to be fathers and woman can only "find themselves" by divorcing and finding the "bad boy".   Haag devotes at lest 60+ pages on infidelities and why people stray today and that she feels the reader needs to turn the other cheek while our spouses cheats or at least that is what is implied by what she wrote. 


Page 17, Hagg writes about 3 options a disenchanted melancholy spouse has:


Option 1: realize you are asking too much from your marriage and deal with it.

Option 2: decide marriage just isn't for you "renounce the estate of marriage in general as oppressive, futile or archaic."

Option 3: renounce your spouse that he or she was wrong for you and become a serial monogamist, convinced the next spouse will work.

Haag also states in her book "Marriage Kills Options."  I was hoping to read one happy story about marriage and how the couple made it work though the good and the bad times but instead I was bombard with negative views on marriage, stay at home wives, men and children - making the book almost unreadable.

Haag also mentions most marriages that end in divorce are found in the bible belt while New England area are less likely to divorce but than goes on to devote an entire paragraph to "Things I admire about the "Christian marriages" I encounter, for lack of a more finely calibrated shorthand, is that they seem to maintain a nonchalance and genuinely noncompetitive equanimity around children." They don't display the lever of anxiety I see in affluent, secular marriage, so their exercise of "Family Values" has a different effect."

At one point in the book she brings in the problems of her marriage and being a parent.  I feel if you are going to be a writer you should be objective you should never bring your own problems into your writing.  I truly feel sorry for her husband and son because I wouldn't want everyone I know reading about my marriage, sex, children and my thoughts on divorcing my spouse.  I feel people should be open with their children but it doesn't need to be broadcasted to the whole world.

This book tries so hard to be edgy and conversational but instead it comes off sounding like an upper class elitist snob who can't understand why some people are happy in their marriage, why women would want to be stay at homes mom and be truly happy, and why sometimes marriage is hard work and it can't be full of passion all the time.  Sometimes you need to work hard in a marriage and guess what, that's ok.  9 years of marriage and not every day has been non stop passion and not every day we are happy but its the little things in life that can make someone fall in love with their spouse all over again. A simple smile, a hug, and a kiss when no one is looking.  That is what keeps the passion alive in a marriage, not being "Slammed up against a wall when you get home from work."As mentioned in the book and I do not feel I am sleeping next to a  "Toaster".

Again I had a very hard time being objective while reading this book so its more of a commentary of the book than a review.  The ideas in this book are unclearly argued and not supported by enough evidence and her bias are clearly shown and she doesn't seem to fully understand the Women's Movement, as it was to give women the right to chose.  The choice to stay home and raise a family and be happy or the choice to work and be happy,  to be married and the choice to be single. Either way it is a choice for us to be happy and we should not judge women on the choices they make, as we have not walked in their shoes.

I gave the book 2 stars out of 5 because this book wasn't my type of book but others might find it interesting.  Don't judge marriage based on this book.


Thanks to Heidi for this review.

Publisher:  Published May 31st 2011 by Harper

Copyright: 2012

Pages:  352

ISBN:    9780061719288

Quick Review: 2 Stars out of 5. 

Why I Read It: Sent by the publisher for review and I thought it looked like an interesting book.

Synopsis:   Pamela Haag has written the generational "big book" on modern marriage, a mesmerizing, sometimes salacious look at the semi-happy ambivalence lurking just below the surface of many marriages today. The spouses may rarely fight—they may maintain a sincere affection for each other—but one or both may harbor a melancholy sense that something important is missing.

Remarkably, this side of the marriage story hasn't been told or analyzed—until now.

Meticulously researched and injected with insightful firsthand accounts and welcome doses of humor, Marriage Confidential articulates for a generation that grew up believing they would "have it all" why they have ended up disenchanted. Haag introduces us to contemporary marriages where spouses act more like life partners than lovers; children occupy an uncontested position at the center of the marital relationship; and even the romantic staples of sexual fidelity and passion are assailed from all sides—so much so that spouses can end up having affairs online almost by accident.

Blending tales from the front lines of matrimony with cultural history, surveys, and research covert-ops (such as joining an online affair-finding site and posting a personal ad in the New York Review of Books), Haag paints a detailed picture of the state of marriage today. And to show what's possible as well as what's melancholy in our post-romantic age, Haag seeks out marriages with a twist—rebels who are quietly brainstorming and evolving the scripts around career, money, social life, child rearing, and sex.

Provocative but sympathetic, forward-thinking and bold, here, at last, is a manifesto for living large in marriage.

 

Author Biography:  I’m a published writer of nonfiction, cultural commentary, opinion and polemic. Much of my work has focused on women’s issues, feminism, American cultural history, and cultural trends. My interests are eclectic, and I like it that way. I don’t like cant, predictable stances, or getting stuck in a thematic or intellectual rut. I prefer to keep things moving. Among many other topics, I’ve written on modern marriage, sports talk radio, slots gambling, single-sex education, changes in wealth and class mobility, the politics of sexual violence, elite colleges and their mystique, the genius of “The Wire”, celibacy, and the rebuilding of the lower Manhattan subway system after the 9/11 attacks.

Other Reviews:  NY Times, Washington Post, Today MSNBC