Making Marriage Work: New Rules for an Old Institution

As the judge starring on the hit nationally syndicated television show Divorce Court, Lynn Toler witnesses, en masse, the thematic mistakes made in American marriages. She herself has also been wed for 22 years and has seen both the highs and lows of matrimony in her own marriage as well as the marriages of those close to her. While the national divorce rate hovers around the 50% threshold, there is a lot of chatter that marriage as we know it is an outdated institution--that we are too selfish, too unwilling to make sacrifices, and too misguided by elevated expectations of happiness to make marriage work. While these points may hold some validity, a lot of this chatter is nothing new. So what's causing so many divorces and, perhaps even more importantly, what are we to do about it if we want marriage to survive? Drawing from both her professional career and personal life, Toler sees that the biggest impediment to marriage these days is that couples decide to take the plunge based almo