“My needs aren’t being met,” “This marriage is not working for me anymore,” “It’s not the deal I signed up for”—these are laments I hear regularly in my sessions. As psychologist and author Bill Doherty observes, these kinds of statements apply the values of consumerism—“personal gain, low cost, entitlement, and hedging one’s bets”—to our romantic connections. “We still believe in commitment,” he writes, “but powerful voices coming from inside and outside tell us that we are suckers if we settle for less than we think we need and deserve in our marriage.”5
There is so much to sum up the narratives of perceptions around relationships in Chapter three. The conversation is really valuable to look upon in our age of mixed ideas of marriage.
