Can there be too much marriage therapy?

Jessica Grose makes a good point, that the adage "perfect is the enemy of good enough" can apply to marriages as well. MP

Can This Marriage Be Fun?
Enough with all the marriage therapy!
By Jessica Grose in www.slate.com

Posted Thursday, April 29, 2010, at 10:04 AM ET

Last week, the editor-in-chief of Ladies Home Journal went on the Today show to promote the magazine's new series of webisodes, based on the iconic midcentury column "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" These snappy two-and-a-half-minute clips are meant to update the 57-year-old marriage-improvement series for a reality-TV age. A goofy man in an Unsolved Mysteries-style, trench coat narrates the couple's woes against a fake-gritty backdrop, with a fog machine blowing, before looking into the camera and asking the audience things like, "Will Robin choose her puppy over her hubby?"


But his lighthearted banter belies the enormity of the task at hand. The issues shown in these webisodes range from petty to serious and everything in between: There's good old "Robin" and her husband "Ted" who get a dog in order to pave over the problems in their relationship. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous to have a dog in bed with us," Ted rages. Another webisode features "Jim" and "Melissa," a "typical young couple" who have not had sex in years. Years! With no end date planned for the series, the webisodes will surely cover every possible marriage pitfall, from in-laws to bedtimes to incompatible dishwasher-loading techniques. It's enough to spook a girl off of marriage entirely. But I am getting married—in a little more than a month, in fact—and quite happy about it, so I am determined to take an entirely different view of the whole thing.

Read the whole piece here.