# Are you semihappy or a workhorse wife? Five different kinds of modern marriage?



## Tourchwood (Feb 1, 2011)

I found this article today at hoffingtonpost. 

From 'Avatar Affairs' to 'Ed McMahon Syndrome', author Pamela Haag reveals the unromantic reality behind so-called wedded bliss...
By TAMARA ABRAHAM
Last updated at 6:15 PM on 6th June 2011
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Romantic comedies and chick lit lead women to believe that marriage is life's holy grail. But according to one woman, the happily-ever-after ideal is now harder to realise than ever before.
In Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting The Rules, author Pamela Haag outlines five different kinds of modern marriage, revealing how it is often security and children that keep a couple together, rather than love.
Among the 'so-so couplings' she describes, are the 'workhorse wife' - when a woman's career funds the dreams of her 'Tom Sawyer' husband - and 'Ed McMahon Syndrome' in which a spouse will agree with their partner just to keep the relationship balanced.


Read more: Are you semihappy or a workhorse wife? New book defines five different kinds of modern marriage | Mail Online
Ms Haag, 45, who herself is married, told the Today Show: I came up with this field guide to organise all the different ways that marriage is changing today.'

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A large part of the book is dedicated to what she calls a semihappy marriage.
She explained: 'A semihappy marriage lives in a shade of grey. It's not miserable at all, nor is it all that successful.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER? FIVE MODERN MARRIAGES

THE SEMIHAPPY MARRIAGE
According to Marriage Confidential: 'Mostly you live with genuine ambivalence and indeterminacy: One minute, you feel that your marriage is a good, solid thing; the next, you resent it and you think, how can I live with this person anymore?'
THE PARENTING MARRIAGE
Ms Haag writes: 'Children are at the center of a family now. Go back to the Fifties and husbands and wives had many different roles... Today, parenting is the sole priority... It crowds out other functions.'
WORKHORSE WIVES
Where a wife works a corporate job that she doesn't necessarily like in order to fund the pro-golfer or musician dreams of her 'Tom Sawyer' husband.
ED MCMAHON SYNDROME
Named after the Eighties actor and comedian whose catchphrase was, 'You are correct, sir!', Ms Haag is referring to a spouse who is so eager not to rock the 'semihappy' boat they will agree with just about anything.
THE SEMIMARRIED
An uncomfortable limbo between marriage and divorce that emerged during the recent recession.
It defines couple that might want to divorce but can't afford to do so, or a separated couple that are still cohabiting.
'So you know you're in a semihappy marriage if you wake up worried about divorce. Or if one minute you can't imagine staying in your marriage, and the next minute you can't imagine leaving.
'It's these low-conflict, amiable, but sort of listless marriages that actually contribute the lion's share to the divorce rate. It's not the couples who are throwing dishes and screaming.'
She admitted that even she herself was semihappy in her marriage, writing in the book: 'I have a nice marriage, a lovely husband, but you never know. On other days and in other moments I think that this could very well be the last year of our marriage.'
But she added in an interview with Glamour that her admission had benefited her relationship
'I do think that our marriage is better because of this,' she revealed. 'We’re paying more attention to each other. I think my husband’s very brave to allow me to write about it!'
She believes children are the new spouses having migrated 'from chair to throne', in her section on the 'Parenting Marriage'.
Ms Haag, a mother-of-one, explained that while children are often the one remaining reason for couples to marry and stay together, being a parent can overwhelm a marriage because children are so much more socially included these days.
She writes: 'Parenthood is swallowing marriage... Children are at the center of a family now. 
'From a historical perspective it’s a departure. Go back to the Fifties and husbands and wives had many different roles - as hostess, decorator, breadwinner, volunteer. They weren’t just parents. Today, parenting is the sole priority... It crowds out other functions.'

Semihappy: Pamela Haag even admits failings in her own relationship
Echoing the trend of 'semihappiness' Ms Haag also describes the trend for 'Ed McMahon Syndrome', when a spouse follows the 'You are correct, sir!' strategy for getting through disagreements, and the 'Semimarried', who are stuck in an uncomfortable limbo between marriage and divorce.
Ms Haag, a historian, based her research on a study of almost 2,000 people and even openly created online dating identities and personal ads with her husband for the book.
Her survey revealed startling findings. It showed that one third of married people say they wish they'd never married their spouses, and that as many as 65 per cent of wives and more than 85 per cent of husbands would have affairs if they knew they wouldn't be caught.
She told the Huffington Post that due to online dating sites and booming technological advances, trusting your spouse not to cheat has become more difficult.
'When we do get married, social media puts new stresses on monogamy - it’s easy to sign on to an online flirtation on Facebook or through email, and you can even use an online affair-finding site to find people to cheat with,' she said.

Low-conflict: Ms Haag found that semihappy marriages contribute the lion's share to the U.S. divorce rate
'If we do slip into infidelity, we could have what I call an "Avatar affair" where the "lovers" communicate online, but might never meet. It’s all smoke, no mirrors.'
For some couples she says the answer is to become a 'new monogamist' - her term for what is effectively an open marriage, or an 'Oreo Marriage' where the couple looks traditional from the outside yet might enjoy something untraditional, such as swinging, in private.
She told the Huffington Post: 'Many marriages are practising “Free Love Version 2.0,” in which spouses are actually trying to be honest and have decided that their marriage can tolerate some other attachments.'
Marriage Confidential: The Post-Romantic Age of Workhorse Wives, Royal Children, Undersexed Spouses, and Rebel Couples Who Are Rewriting the Rules, by Pamela Haag ($25.99, HarperCollins)


Read more: Are you semihappy or a workhorse wife? New book defines five different kinds of modern marriage | Mail Online


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Workhorse wives...that's a good one. A corporate knife fighter by day and then when she comes home she wants a bodice ripper of a husband to ravish her. Of course one who otherwise wears an apron and is docile as a Hindu Holstein.

You'd better talk to HR about that. I don't think we have any of those.


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