Should You Read ‘Should You Leave?’

I know you. You’ve been reading a few of my blogs and now you’re curious how much of my own marital dirty laundry I’m going to wave beneath your nose. Or perhaps you’ve come across this book review through a web search and hope that I’ll get to the point in 800 words or less— so you can decide whether it’s worth reading this book from the author of the bestselling Listening to Prozac. Either way I’m happy to oblige.

The book’s full title is Should You Leave? A Psychiatrist Explores Intimacy and Autonomy— and the Nature of Advice. I came to it antsy for swift advice. Before a counselor recommended it to me, I even asked him something like: “Isn’t there something as quick as a Cosmo sex survey that will tell me if I’m making a mistake?” To his credit, and that of author Peter D. Kramer, I have been slowed in that sense of urgency. If you’re having some marital issues that you want to address before they get out of control, Couples Retreat Michigan can be helpful.

The book’s opening chapters were, for me, as thick and convoluted as the opening of a Tom Robbins novel (This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper“? What the?!). Like my spurious tribute in this entry’s opening paragraph, Kramer tests out a disturbing—but eventually disarming— second-person point of view: he addresses me the reader directly. In Chapter 2 I am Iris, a “young middle age” magazine exec fed up with Randall, my frumpy husband. I’m sitting here before Dr. Kramer and I expect his clear advice in the space of our single one-hour introductory session. In Chapter 7 I am Asa, the eminently reasonable husband of the utterly frustrating Bianca. Or perhaps in Chapter 7 I am Bianca.

As presumptuous as his writing style may sound, this is more than just a clever conceit. In the first few chapters I found myself forced into a gender-bending empathy for a dozen or more different people, each of them— err, me (us?)— struggling in their/my (our?) relationships. Willing readers will find this a challenging journey akin to the actual process of marriage counseling: wives must walk a mile in their husbands’ stinky sneakers; husbands must don their wives’ strappy sandals for the journey.

Of course, “willing” readers is the key there: I suspect Kramer’s dense style and cerebral enthusiasm weeds out the most impatient readers before his technique pays off. And that may be OK: advice is not for everyone.

In essence, Kramer seeks immediately to calm the impatience that accompanies most requests for advice. He deduces what might bring a reader to his book—and there is indeed a singular level of commitment in someone who would risk being caught reading a book on relationship advice. Myself, I waited till my wife was out of town before checking it out from the library. Emboldened by the optimism I was building (from contrasting my situation to those of Kramer’s patients— and classic cases, such as those of Dr. Freud), I eventually brought the book out in the open.

Well, actually, I kept it face-down on the nightstand. Discussing this stuff openly takes time.

That is perhaps one of the book’s triumphs: for those who aren’t comfortable airing their intimate foibles with others (even with a counselor), this book attempts to replicate that process from the utter privacy of the typeset page. If you make it through the book (no small assumption), you will have journeyed through something like several sessions with a psychiatrist or psychologist, including sharing a few cups of coffee or pints of beer afterward.

This book has plenty of insight for an incredibly broad range of struggling relationships. Its advice is all the more salient because it is tempered with the author’s own ambivalence about the pitfalls of books, friends, or even professionals doling out advice. That irony might be said to be the central dilemma of advice-giving professionals: All advice is presumptuous; but without presumptions we might still be Neanderthals. Or, as William Hazlitt wrote, back when fountain pens and absinthe were all the rage: “Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.”

My greatest personal takeaway from the book was its reassurance that seeking to be exceptional was OK. In psychiatry, a field that seems to be about normalizing the abnormal, it’s refreshing to hear from an expert who reveres your/my (our?) free-thinking ways:

You with a relationship substantial enough to be worth consulting over, surely you know the conventional wisdom. That assumption leads immediately to another: … you hope to be an exception. At least this is a likely reason that a person who knows the rules might seek advice. Should You Leave, p.39

Kramer does much more than simply pat us freethinkers on the back and say it’ll all work out. Every reader will find different advice for their particular situation, and certainly some may find cause to walk away. If you accept the inherent riddles of advice— that you’re probably the only one who can answer your questions, but you sure would like a little guidance— then you’ll find gems here.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Greg

Photo by You – err, Iris (me?)

4 thoughts on “Should You Read ‘Should You Leave?’”

  1. Well, first of all an effective counselor does not give advice. They give insights and options, at least that is my philosophy on school counselors! This book sounds like an interesting approach to a difficult life choice. Good for you in working through the information !!
    PRH

  2. Or, um, crashing through the roof with it…. the whole kitchen/dining/laundry/bath… gonzo. It will be epic.

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