Book Reviews
Go To Hopkins & Company Homepage	Go to Executive Times Archives Go to Book Review List
Toward Commitment: A Dialogue About Marriage by Diane Rehm and John B. Rehm Rating: • (Read only if your interest is strong)
Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com
Eavesdropping Regular listeners to “The Diane Rehm Show” on National Public Radio will snap up copies of her new book, Toward Commitment, because they love Diane. In the book, Diane and her husband, John, talk individually and in dialogue about the topics that impact all married couples, and how they have faced and dealt with those topics during their own 42 years of marriage. The structure of the book is that for each of about 25 topics, first John, and then Diane, will provide their individual comments on that topic. Then, they enter into a dialogue on that topic. An appendix follows for readers to answer questions about that topic for their own situation. Here’s an excerpt (p. 281 and 282) of the questions on two topics: “Money Was your family frugal or generous in dealing with money? As you were growing up, how freely could you spend money? How will we handle our money? How will we deal with debt? Will we consolidate our incomes? Arguing What is your view of the purpose of arguing? How important is it to you to win an argument? How would you describe your style of arguing? Do you believe that arguing can be constructive?” In many ways, the few pages of these questions from the Appendix provide the most useful help for married couples. Readers’ eavesdropping on Diane and John topic by topic becomes uncomfortable and awkward as the book progresses. It’s almost as if readers are getting to know both individuals. In my case, I kept wondering why they got married in the first place, and why they’ve stayed married. I’d project that most readers would not want to be married to either of them. Here are some excerpts from the chapter titled “Holiday Celebrations” (pp. 185ff): “John Despite many years of celebrating family holidays, such occasions continue both to reward and to disappoint us. We anticipate them by combining memories and hopes. The memories preserve the vividness of happy, though fleeting, moments. The hopes obscure the disappointments of past celebrations; they create the illusion of a perfect celebration. As a result, we approach holidays with unrealistic expectations, along with dealings of vulnerability. I have found Christmas to be the most problematic holiday, with distinctly bright and dark features. However fragile, the bright features are largely defined for me by such activities as shopping, trimming the tree, wrapping and opening presents, cooking, and feasting. … Diane I’m a child when it comes to holidays. I want to have all our friends at our home for Easter brunch. I love to see the table filled with people at Thanksgiving. And the tree, the presents, the food at Christmas – I expect all of it to be perfect. Unfortunately, these childhood fantasies rarely come true in adulthood, no more than they do in childhood. I remember the arguments at Thanksgiving, the absence of a hoped-for Easter basket, and the last days of my dying mother in the hospital at Christmas. … I promise myself each year that I’ll do a better job of planning for Christmas, and yet each year I put it off. … Dialogue on Holiday Celebrations … Diane: There were so many Christmases, Thanksgivings, and Easters when, no doubt as a result of that pressure, you and I got into huge arguments, not speaking for weeks and both unwilling to come back together until the day of the holiday itself. There was actually one Easter party we gave at which you didn’t show up. It was awful. John: I guess if there are already tensions in a relationship and you pile a holiday on top of that, yes, it’s going to exacerbate those tensions and also make the holiday more problematic.” Reading Toward Commitment means plowing through almost 300 pages of those reflections and observations. Unless your own relationship is in deep trouble, or unless your morbid sense of curiosity about someone else’s marital reality is strong, I suggest you take a pass. The lowest point for me was reading (p. 151-2) the “Terms of Marital Agreement” that the Rehms wrote in 1982 during the course of psychotherapy. By the time I closed the book, I was bedazzled that this couple have stayed together for so many years. Steve Hopkins, October 30, 2002
ã 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the December 2002 issue of Executive Times For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com www.hopkinsandcompany.com