Have you been married for a few years (decades)? Having a successful marriage can be a lot of hard work, especially if you’ve lived through a few upheavals in your lives together.
A long-term study at Berkeley found that marriage can actually get better as we get older and grow together. In fact, they often found that if a couple made it through the first 15 years, they built genuine respect for each other and often got beyond the futile attempts to change each other.
But if you’ve married for those 15+ years yourself, you know that marriage can look very different to those on the inside of it compared to those on the outside of it.
If you want a beautiful portrait into a real, long-lasting marriage, then Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass is your perfect next read.
Time, Memory, Marriage
If you’ve been married for a long time – or made a commitment to your partner many years ago – you know that the idea of lifetime commitment can be scary.
After all, choosing to spend your life with someone when you know that they will inevitably change as you will, too, can be a scary concept.
In her powerful, intimate memoir, Shapiro gives a look inside her own marriage and how she reconciles what she initially pictured and what her actual reality is.
How Does Love Weather Life
You know that life takes twists and turns we never expected. How does love and a long-lasting relationship weather those changes?
As one reviewer puts it, these things could easily be cracks in a relationship. Taking care of children, aging parents, financial struggles, co-dependence on your life together. But if done right, those very cracks can be the strength within that marriage.
Other reviewers sing the praises of her beautiful writing that captivates you from the start and makes you regret that the book isn’t “long enough.”
I love that in Hourglass, Shapiro is honest in the normal cycles of life and what she and her husband have had to do to make their marriage work.
It’s not all butterflies and rainbows after all.
If you’ve been married a long time or are hoping to find your next great relationship, Hourglass should move to the top of your to-read pile.
