Shankar Vedantam

You call this the Michelangelo effect.

So, Eli, do we actually have this power, this power to play sculptor and bring out the best in someone else?

You know, many marriage experts say that high expectations are the enemy of happiness in marriage.

You come to a slightly different conclusion.

You say that it's true that on average, many marriages might be unhappier today than they were half a century ago.

But that isn't true of all marriages.

Who are the exceptions?

So this idea that some people invest heavily in their marriages at the expense of careers and friends, maybe even, you know, their children's activities, you say this is perfectly captured in a scene from another movie.

In Sideways, Paul Giamatti's wine connoisseur character explains to his love interest the difference between a Pinot and a Cabernet.

So, of course, Eli, when we hear this and we're thinking about this in the context of marriage, why wouldn't we all want to grow Pinot?

One of the conclusions of your book is that we have, in some ways, two major alternatives when it comes to dealing with this challenge that many of us want to be at the top of Mount Maslow but are not investing the time and effort or the patience to actually get there.

In your own marriage, you describe a trip to Seattle where, in your own analogy, you found yourself starved of oxygen.

Eli and other researchers have found that it's not especially easy to fulfill a partner's emotional and psychological needs when you're struggling to pay the bills or working three jobs.

This might be one reason that the institution of marriage appears to be especially fragile among low-income couples.

When we come back, we're going to look at tangible solutions.

If you can't afford to take your partner on that romantic trip to Paris, but you still want to get to the top of Mount Maslow, we'll show you how to get there.

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.