The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship

By David Whyte

Book Overview

A radical, "crystalline" (Elle) approach to integrating our work, relationships, and inner selves from the bestselling author, poet, and speaker.

The author of Crossing the Unknown Sea and The Heart Aroused encourages readers to reimagine how they inhabit the worlds of love, work, and self-understanding. Whyte suggests that separating these "marriages" in order to balance them is to destroy the fabric of happiness itself. Drawing from his own struggles and the lives of some of the world's great writers and artists-from Dante to Jane Austen to Robert Louis Stevenson-Whyte explores the ways these core commitments are connected. Only by understanding the journey involved in each of the three marriages and the stages of their maturation, he says, can we understand how to bring them together in one fulfilled life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159448435X
• ISBN13: 9781594484353
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Some Pretty Terrific Stuff Here!

David posits that we have three very important marriages in our lives: marriage to a partner, our marriage to our work, and that ultimate marriage we should be having with ourselves. He says these things are so closely tied to who we are, that we must look at all three. (probably OFTEN.) He also says we can't expect a perfect balance, and explains why that just doesn't work in the real world. (what a relief!) I downloaded the audio version and listened to it twice. He addressed so many important areas, using wonderful stories and poems, that finally, after listening to it twice, I ordered a copy of the book so I could highlight all the good stuff I wanted to remember. I'm a happy camper.

No divorces

David Whyte's The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship is insightful and useful. I'm struggling in a doctoral seminar with students who are overburdened, stressed-out, and occasionally melting down. I've recommended Whyte's Three Marriages to help them gain perspective on this everyperson's tri-focal balance challenge. Whyte's experience and his examples are really supportive of his argument. Overwhelmed professionals and doc students really need a catalytic reason to take a deep breath and reconsider life priorities and how they are so intricately interwoven. David Whyte's book helps. In addition he uses language like the poet he is and this not only guides his point home but guides it beautifully. Leonard L. LaPointe, PhD Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor of Communication Science & Disorders Florida State University Tallahassee, FL USA 32306-1200

The Three Marriages

David Whyte weaves the stories of Dante and Beatrice,Robert Louis Stevenson,Jane Austen and others to illustrate the interconnections of relationship with self, work and marriage. I used to think these worlds were separately spinning spheres but each is informed by the other with the relationship with self providing the clarity for the others. Whyte takes the idea of work life balance and turns it on its head to get us to someplace where we understand connection. It can be dense to read at times but he has done a great job of breaking the book up into chapters, sections and reviews at the end of chapters to capture the salient points. I highly recommend the book to gain insight into personal relationships(I was wondering why I was stuck in a lousy job and a lousy relationship), to discuss as a work group or to discover with a loved one.It would also be a great book group discussion. Also discover (or rediscover) how poetry can put into words these complexities, particulalry David Whyte's poetry which can be found in other of his books.

Provides a pointed discussion of how to bring balance and a deeper satisfaction to life

David Whyte's THE THREE MARRIAGES: REIMAGINING WORK, SELF AND RELATIONSHIP is read by the author and provides a pointed discussion of how to bring balance and a deeper satisfaction to life. Rethinking work, partnership and inner self is part of the formula: the focus on 'secret vows' made between all make for an involving survey.

"Most Marriages are Dynamic, Moving Frontiers"

In 'The Three Marriages', author and poet, David Whyte says, "Most marriages are dynamic, moving frontiers, hardly recognizable to the participants themselves, moving frontiers that occupy edges of happiness and unhappiness all at the same time." (pg. 241). This is the kind of intelligent and useful insight one finds throughout Whyte's most recent book. What is unique about this statement, and many of the ideas developed in this work, is that you could apply this idea to any of the three marriages, the marriage to another, the marriage to one's work, and the marriage to oneself. I believe this is a unique and very helpful way to imagine the relationships in our lives. It is not a question of balance or choosing, but a question of seeing each of our 'marriages' as love affairs in their own right, with all the ups and downs one experiences in a love affair with another person. The way that he illustrates his ideas is not only through is own life experiences, but through the lives of great writers, spiritual teachers and ordinary brave people, such as Jane Austen, Dante, Emily Dickenson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Pema Chodran and JK Rowling to name a few. This makes for a lively, interesting and adventurous read. In the final chapter, "Not a Question of Balance: A Marriage of Marriages", he gives us some new ideas about how we can bring it all together. I won't spoil any secrets, but leave it to your own enjoyable read.