I interrupt the regular Monday Meme to give my dear readers a chance to win a belated Christmas prezzie.
Next month I will be reviewing the novel, Matrimony by Joshua Henkin. He contacted me a couple of weeks ago wondering if I would be interested in giving away an autographed copy of his book to one of my readers. Since I have never given any of you anything (except fits perhaps), I wondered how you would react, my dear readers. But I know that for myself, anytime someone offers me a free book, I am snoopy-dance happy. Books are a way awesome thing to find in your mailbox.
So, the novel is about a marriage as it evolves over time and the reviews I’ve read are quite good. It was a New York Times Notable so I am looking forward to reading it myself.
The contest* is a random drawing and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment and share your ideas of what marriage means -from personal experience or just wishful thinking. The deadline for entering is midnight (MST) this Friday, December 26th. The winner will be announced on Monday, December 29th. And there are no geographical restrictions. Josh will send this book to the winner wherever they may be.
*I am not kidding people. I really have a book to give away. Enter and possibly win.
anniegirl1138 
To me, marriage is a committment you make to your best friend. I love my husband with all of my heart:)
Everybody keeps talking about this! Yes, please enter me. thanks!!!
One of my favorite quotations about marriage, paraphrased a bit — love doesn’t always mean looking longingly into each other’s eyes, but looking outward in the same direction. Thanks for the chance to win!
I hope that my marriage will always be filled with laughter, love, trust, and respect. Especially when the going gets tough!
After 18 years with the same man, married for 14 of those, I think what has saved us through the trying (and excruciatingly difficult) times is that we can talk to each other. We’ve always been able to talk to each other. Sometimes it takes awhile…we have to stop yelling at each other first, but then we talk. There is nothing more intimate than marriage, than in living with someone day in and day out, literally for better and worse.
Ah, my Christmas heart carols at your gracious invitation to the modem and the odds of winning the matrimony book.
It’s a matter of odds, you know. I once took a couple of statistics courses. The chances of winning, with three choices, are 3X2X1=6. Most of us do very well, in the beginning of a marriage, when the choices are limited and we’re of a mind to be one. Slowly the table turns and the gaming becomes more complicated, with many choices times each other times two minds times children. If one of you doesn’t dummy up, once in a while, the permutations and combinations are beyond human computation. For example, the odds of a decision between two dinner choices, in a family of five, would be something like 5X4X3X2X1X2X1, or 240 to 1. You get the idea. If, all of the sudden, there are many choices to be made and one partner is also having an affair, do the math!
Warm, rational and observant people know that love, trust and commitment can simplify and solve most any equation. I have no idea if, or what, men think.
Marriage is all about living with your best friend for life.
It is about romance, it is about giving each other pleasure, certainly.
But most of all it is about friendship, about forgiving, and of living with each other’s faults.
I’d love to win this book. My idea of a good marriage is remaining best friends or at least good friends with your spouse.
vdruckman at hotmail dot com
count me in
i think that marriage is hard and that you need more than just love! i think you need ot have similar beliefs and values and that you need a lot of respect and honesty and the ability to communicate!
thanks!
i’ve heard great things about this book! i think that a good marriage needs lots of love, honesty, respect and good communication
i would love to win! this book sounds so great! i’m not married but i think a good marraige needs mutaul respect and great communication
Here’s my thought/advice about marriage: The smartest thing I ever did was WAIT until I was ready. I didn’t walk the green mile until I was 39. If I had done it any earlier, it would have crashed and burned. Look deep inside yourself and really meditate on whether or not you’re ready. I think that the trend towards marrying later in life is a healthy one.
My other tip is regarding children: Don’t ever, EVER let them sleep in the same bed with you at night to keep them from crying. It’s a slippery slope, my friends.
The added bonus of this contest for me is that I collect signed first editions, so if I won this book I would have to go out and buy a second reading copy. Nobody in their right mind would actually READ a signed first edition, would they? Reading it—even once—would degrade its condition.
You not allowed to read them?
I’ve been legally married twice, and by common law, several other times. I’ve had children in and out of wedlock, and I have suffered (and caused others to suffer) some slings and arrows of matrimony.
I was interested to read your column on rom-coms, Annie. I think that’s in a nutshell what killed my first marriage. We were young, inexperienced, and I was under the dillusion that marriage would make my grief over my brother’s death all better. It didn’t.
I turned down a marriage proposal some time after that, although the idea that I could make it work with an ex-con/ mental patient/ welfare bad boy did cross my mind. Fortunately, I had evolved a little in my thinking, and I moved on.
I got pregnant with a man whose preferred method of “courting” was to call me up at 9:30 pm on a Wednesday to ask if I was horny. He liked me to leave the lights off, and the sliding glass door unlocked, so he could let himself in, and leave without the bother of human interaction- what was I thinking? Thank goodness I did not convince myself I could/would make it work with him, although I was left with a treasure of a boy from him.
I promised myself I would be a better wife to Willis, which worked for a while. He was a good man, but the mental health issues we both struggled with made this relationship pretty challenging. He died from bipolar disorder, and I still sometimes regret that I wasn’t the wife I aspired to be with him. I’m a better widow, I think.
My current marriage is my last, with any luck. Neither of us wishes to undertake the legal trappings of marriage this time round, but we both wear rings. We refer to each other as husband and wife.
Will “it” work? I’m no longer sure that there is any “it” to marriage. Rob and I do our utmost to get along, support each other, learn from each other, enjoy each other. Neither of us is interested in doing this over again, so we are pretty determined to figure out how to keep getting along, even when it is challenging to do so.
So, what I want from marriage, this time ’round, is to be a partner, lover and companion, and to have one in return. So far, so good.
I’d love to win this book! To me marriage means mutual respect, trust and love. In an ideal world!