Stress and Marriage: The Conflict-Reducing, Intimacy-Enhancing, Problem-Solving Guide to a Better Marriage

The truth is, almost everything that goes wrong in a marriage is stress related: inequitable division of labor leads to stress; verbal abuse leads to stress; cultural differences lead to stress; as do bad communication, sexual dysfunction, competition, etc. As a broad general guide to marriage, this latest by the husband-and-wife therapist team who wrote The Stress Solution offers some gritty good sense. They discuss how the fantastical expectations that can scotch reality and the very real stresses that children can bring. They emphasize mutual respect, even saying that ""if your spouse doesn't want to get involved, respect their right not to. It doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of commitment."" They describe how easily arguments spiral out of control and offer suggestions (some familiar) about how to talk to each other without creating unnecessary hostility. Unfortunately, there is also plenty of filler, with the authors repeating their Marital Stress Plans or their beliefs about relationships and birth order. Clearly, Miller and Smith have plenty of other ideas: twice they mention a paper they assigned to one couple, on ""My Wife/Husband as a Cross-Cultural Experience"" but provide no details. Like many others, they fall into the trap of cutely named, alliterative plans (e.g., they warn against ""the three P soup"" of Personal, Permanent or Pervasive criticism), which often come off as more condescending than illuminating. (Oct.)