Sunday, March 13, 2011

Loved it!!

I finished reading "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage" today. As with any good book, I'm bummed out that I've finished it...it was just *that* good. The minute this one came out I knew I wanted to read it and I finally got around to it. I remember enjoying "Eat Pray Love", but not quite as much as I enjoyed reading this one. The main reason for this being that I pretty much agreed with a lot of what she said in this book. I also learned a WHOLE lot about marriage in general...some of which infuriated me and I wish I had known, say 5 years ago!

This was also my very first time reading an e-book (and I finally realized I would actually LOVE an e-reader AKA Nook). I downloaded it FREE from my public library to my iPhone...it was 1016 pages on my phone!!

The book spends most of the time on discussions about Gilbert's research into the history and sociology of marriage in Western society, which I found rather interesting.

I really appreciated Gilbert's honesty and curiosity about her fears, her expectations in relationships, and her resentment toward a society that often defines marriage in a way that enforces and imposes gender stereotypes.

I'd like to share some quotes with you from the book:

"Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work."

"Equally disquieting are the times when we do make a choice, only to later feel as though we have murdered some other aspect of our being by settling on one single concrete decision." 

"I was a veritable Johnny Appleseed of grand expectations, and all I reaped for my trouble was a harvest of bitter fruit." 

"Sometimes life is messy and botched. We do our best. We don't always know the right move."

"The only difference between the 1st and 2nd marriage is that in the 2nd you know you are gambling."

I gave it "5" stars. But that's just my opinion. :)

2 comments:

Travel & Dive Girl said...

Sounds like a good read - thanks for the recommendation...for someone that's been married for 22 years, let me tell you - it is hard work and not necessarily fun. There are still days when I wonder what the hell I've done.

Shannon said...

I loved it to - and being in the process of patching my marriage back together - well - I found it extremely helpful and thought-provoking. And my husband even agreed to read it!