What No One Tells the Bride
By Marg Stark
Hyperion New York, 1998
ISBN 0-7868-8262-X
What No One Tells the Bride; surviving the wedding, sex after the honeymoon, second thoughts, wedding cake freezer burn, becoming your mother, screaming about money, screaming about in-laws, maintaining your identity, and being blissfully happy in spite of it all.
This is my personal favourite when it comes to books on marriage. In writing this book, Marg Stark displayed bravery and creativity. It’s not just that she has a masters’ degree in journalism; she had a goal and she achieved it. Her goal was to tell it all; the things we secretly suspected, the things we thought we knew about and best of all, the things no one has the heart to tell the bride. And she does it with humour and style, giving you the feeling that she’s sitting right beside you. She also does it with a lot of help. Drawing on interviews with 50 new brides, advice from marriage counselors, ministers, financial advisers, sex therapists, and her personal experience, Stark has put together a must-read manual for women on the verge of marriage. I probably read this book countless times before I got married, and I’m still reading it.
In Chapter One she explores Love’s Identity Crises- The Modern Bride’s Inner Turmoil- telling new brides that they will have to adjust to their own happiness, will be bombarded with change and might even feel lost in their own lives. She then gives tips on how to manage this “identity crisis”, before moving on to Chapter Two, where she explores the issues surrounding the engagement and wedding. “It’s normal for the engagement to be peppered with fear, tension, and discord. It’s normal to feel inadequate compared to the fairy tale. But the only real source of splendor is faith, holding on to your groom’s hand, and choosing the great unknown.” She touches on signs you should call off the wedding, differentiates these signs from the usual “wedding jitters”, and ends the chapter with one of my favourite passages in the book, where she describes her wedding evening conversation with her husband.
On making the transition between single and married life she says in Chapter Three, “it’s normal to cling to friends you had when you were single. It’s normal to feel like a walking contradiction. But you can use these contradictions to make your marriage a home for both your independence and your love”, and gives tips on the “How to” of the married social life.
After exploring wedding post partum in Chapter Four, saying that it’s normal to find that marriage isn’t what you thought it would be and tearing down myths such as “all it takes to be married is a license”, “he will be the perfect husband”, “I’m going to be the perfect wife” and ‘we are going to be the perfect couple”, she moves on to the subject of money in Chapter Five, where she writes, “It’s normal for you and your husband to be worlds apart when it comes to money. And it’s normal to find that even in the haven of marriage, money equals power. But as distasteful as it may be, work together to form healthy habits…”
She writes about stereotypes and mindsets in Chapters Six and Seven; about repeating things you saw a parent do, breaking painful patterns, the “fifty-fifty standard”, the “standard of comparison” and the “thrill standard”. She mentions taking married people aside to ask, “I know it’s okay to marry someone who doesn’t fill all your needs. But what if he doesn’t fill what you consider to be one of your most important needs? Is it okay to seek this kind of fulfillment outside of a marriage?”
She writes extensively on sex in marriage in Chapter Eight. “It is normal to take sex for granted now that you have it all the time. It is normal to get distracted and forget how great lovemaking can be. But the key to lustful monogamy is engaging the senses, saying no sparingly, and letting go of anything that keeps love from rocking your world.” “This is creativity, the impetus for… doing something he likes simply because he likes it, and for using chocolate syrup in ways you never have before- clean sheets be damned!”
In Chapters Nine to Twelve she encourages couples to build a foundation before building a family, balance time apart and time together and surmount the obstacles of communication and criticism.
In every chapter she has a section, “bride-to-bride”, where she asks a number of brides what they found out in marriage that no one ever told them. It was a real eye opener for me. This is a beautifully realized book, and I agree with John Gray (PH.D), author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus- “It should be recommended reading for every bride.”
