From a popular magazine writer comes a riveting blend of memoir and thinking person’s self-improvement book about a happy marriage and the therapies, exercises, and investigations that might make it even better—or not. Elizabeth Weil’s cover story in The New York Times Magazine, “Married (Happily) With Issues,” received nearly 4 million page views online. Clearly, the piece struck a nerve—and for good reason. Weil described with wit, charm, and bracing candor her relationship with her husband, Dan, beginning with the two basic ground rules for their marriage: no cheating, no dying. Those rules served them well for ten years. Then Weil started to wonder, Could my marriage be better?
In No Cheating, No Dying, Weil examines the issues we all face in marriage—sex, money, mental health, religion, in-laws, children—through a brave and forthright account of her own messy, hilarious, and challenging relationship. Weil shares her belief that marriage doesn’t occur while wearing a white dress, standing up in front of friends and family. Rather, it evolves gradually, over time, through all the road rage incidents and pre-colonoscopy enemas, the pleasant and disastrous dinners, the unexpected joys and wrenching decisions—the small and large moments you never imagined and certainly didn’t plan to endure. She seeks advice and insights from financial planners, sex therapists, psychoanalysts, marriage coaches, and rabbis. The result is a provocative and revelatory memoir of marriage, shot through with useful research. Through Liz Weil’s experience we gain perspective on our own relationships. This is a book that gets everyone talking.
