Sex & Relationships

Matrimony is a minefield. Avoid the most common missteps, and you and your wife will be as blissful as the couples on these pages

“Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.”—Joseph Barth

On the night they got engaged, Jim and Amy Lawson went down to the hotel bar for a nightcap. Seated a few stools away was a handsome older couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. He was in a suit and tie; she was in a party dress. Jim bought them a round, and they reciprocated. They toasted each other’s good fortune, and then Amy got up the nerve to ask, “So, what’s the secret to a long-lasting marriage?”

The veterans responded in unison, “Agree to disagree...and have two sinks in the bathroom.”

Never a man to mix emotional and plumbing advice, Jim chalked up the hokey-sounding tip to the Champagne and went back to admiring his bride-to-be. The idea resurfaced a few weeks later, after Jim and Amy got back from their honeymoon. Reluctantly dragging themselves around the house in preparation for a return to their lives and careers, the couple began arguing over sink space.
It dawned on Jim that maybe those folks at the bar did know a thing or two. An extra sink would be useful.

And agreeing to disagree? Well, in the morning haze of shaving cream, coffee mugs, and misplaced car keys, that sounded like a pretty good idea, too. Arem (Rem) Duplessis is the art director of a magazine in New York City. Wendi Duplessis is a model for Wilhelmina, also in New York. They’re raising two children under the age of 4. Within the span of 3½ years, Arem and Wendi had a baby, purchased a brownstone in Brooklyn, decided to remodel their house (they moved into a one-bedroom apartment during the renovation), and produced another kid. And Arem changed jobs twice.

Gluttons for punishment, those Duplessises.

“Rem felt he was carrying 90 percent of the responsibility for the family. I felt I was carrying 90 percent,” says Wendi. “We were both constantly stressed and unequivocally annoyed.”