Divided We Stand

As Hollywood keeps telling us, marriage isn't always a breeze. But do trial separations work?

Marriage is big lately. Actually, it's unmarriage that seems to be capturing our attention. From American Beauty to the just released Bruce Willis-Michelle Pfeiffer movie, The Story of Us, the institution is being turned inside out, and it's not a pretty sight. To judge by these films, modern marriage involves a lot of broken china and busted expectations. While the current depictions of marriage may be overly pessimistic, each year half as many Americans get divorced as marry, and that's not a trifling statistic.

When two people first walk down the aisle, marriage and divorce seem like distant countries, each with...

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