{"id":3079,"date":"2011-04-01T17:24:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T21:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=3079"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:41:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:41:03","slug":"spouseonomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/spouseonomics\/","title":{"rendered":"Apparently I was learning marriage concepts in business school?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Click here for a five-minute video about how to apply economic theory to your marriage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI’m late to discover it, but I was recently reading a different WSJ.com story when I found “The Secret to a Happy Marriage: Do the Dishes, Put Out, Don\u2019t Talk So Much”<\/a> on the list of most popular articles.
\nOn Valentine’s Day, Paula Szuchman, an editor at the Wall Street Journal and co-author of the new book \u201cSpousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage and Dirty Dishes,”<\/a> blogged five tips to a better marriage that apply economic theory to relationships.
\nSzuchman introduces her five tips by saying:<\/p>\n

One of the first things people say when they hear about the book is something to the effect of, \u201cIsn\u2019t that kind of unromantic?\u201d Well, yeah. But what\u2019s romantic about dishes, laundry, diapers, bills, mortgages, in-laws, TiVo, company picnics, circular arguments, BlackBerries, hamsters, PTA meetings, and all the million other little things that go into a marriage and detract from the actual romance between two people who once loved each other so much they decided to keep each other company for the rest of their lives?
\nAll that stuff is the business side of marriage, and to navigate it successfully, you don\u2019t need chocolate hearts. You need sound reasoning. You need to be practical and efficient. You need to allocate your scarce resources wisely and make smart trade-offs, so that at the end of the day, you can enjoy the company of that person you promised to have and to hold until death (death!) do you part.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since we arrived in New Orleans<\/a> for a wedding, and I am a girl who cries at weddings, we spent several days steeped in that special kind of romance. Who could argue that the spark of your first kiss to the first I love you to the moment you agree to wed aren’t magic?
\nBut one of my first editors, Maria Stuart<\/a>, taught me that romance is not a dozen roses once a year, it\u2019s your beloved holding your hair while you throw up. So why couldn’t it be romantic to cooperate better on the roommate part of being married so you have more time and energy for enjoying each other?
\nAs you probably gathered from the headline of her article, Szuchman advocates having sex more, talking less, and not worrying so much about 50-50 division of housework. She also says you should lose weight and scheme — or as she says, think strategically.
\nYou can read the whole piece here. <\/a>Then come on back and let me know if you agree with her theories?
\nMore about marriage:<\/strong><\/p>\n