Chrisanna Northrup - The normal bar: the surprising secrets of happy couples and what they reveal about creating a new normal in your relationship

This is the book that we have all been waiting for, a hard empirical look at marriages across continents and cultures. So many universal truths stand outabout romance, and sex, and money, and mostly how to have a happy marriage after allA real gem.

J OHN G OTTMAN , PhD, bestselling author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

The Normal Baris chock-full of good insights and findings in all areas of relationships, from sex and handholding to commitment and pre-nups. Impressive research and results!

T ERRI O RBUCH , P HD , bestselling author of Finding Love Again

Are couples who fall in love at first sight happy decades later? What are the top desires of people in unhappy relationships? Is it normal to stop kissing in a long-term marriage? InThe Normal Barwe learn fascinating bits about other peoples relationship attitudes, behavior, and longingsand tips we can put into action to make our own relationships better.

J OAN P RICE , author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex

Money? Sex? Deep dark secrets? If you wonder how your relationship compares with the rest of the world, The Normal Baroffers you a comprehensive heads upmost important, it suggests that growing healthier and happier may not be mission impossible.

G INA O GDEN , PhD, LMFT, author of The Return of Desire, The Heart & Soul of Sex, and Women Who Love Sex

Im obsessed with this page-turner! After nineteen years of marriage, I faced divorce and entering the dating world with a whole lot of questions about what was and was not normal. Not only did this book answer everything Id ever wondered about relationships and what peoplereallywant, but it restored my faith in the essential sweetness of humankind. Hot damn!

L INDA S IVERTSEN , award-winning author of Generation Green and coauthor of the bestselling Your Big Beautiful Book Plan

The Normal Baris an innovative, easy-to-read book filled with novel findings about relationships and helpful suggestions on making relationships better. I will use the important findings from The Normal Bar in my classes, in my papers, and in my clinical work.

H OWARD J. M ARKMAN , PhD, author of Fighting for Your Marriage

For all of us who have wondered if its possible to define normal, especially when it comes to relationships, the answer is yes. The Normal Bardelves into intimacy, communication, attraction, and more, blending into the discussion compelling statistics and keen insights. The result is equal parts fascinating and comforting. The authors confirm that while in many ways were quite different, at the core, were all very much the same.

C HARLA M ULLER , author of 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy

Does being normal make you happy in your relationships and are happy people normal? This fascinating and very unusual book provides some detailed and nuanced answersFrom relationship formation to coping with breakups, this is a unique tool that informs the decisions of individuals and couples, clinicians and policy-makers. Well recommended!

G ILBERT H ERDT , professor and director, Graduate Program in Human Sexuality, California Institute for Integral Studies

Copyright 2012 by Chrisanna Northrup, Pepper Schwartz, PhD, and James Witte, PhD

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available upon request.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-307-95163-2
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-95574-6

ILLUSTRATIONS BY STACY D AGUIAR
JACKET DESIGN BY MICHAEL NAGIN

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F ROM C HRISANNA N ORTHRUP

The Normal Bar concept and book would have never existed without endless love and support from my husband, Mark. Sweetheart, thank you for entertaining the kids and taking care of the house so that Id have the opportunity to pursue my dream. Youve been such a trooper through this whole journey, and I couldnt have done it without you.

To my kids, Jake, Shelby, and Luke, thank you for sitting with me patiently for hours while I wrote and for not giving me a hard time when Id say, Its almost done, knowing I was nowhere near done.

Stacy DAguiar, thank you for bringing all my visions to life!

Thanks to Joseph Castagnola, who has always supported my creative passion and has had to listen to my nonsense day in and day out.

Thanks to Elisa Esparza who always managed to keep my stress level down by stepping right into my shoes and taking over my day-job responsibilities on a moments notice.

And thanks to my dear friend Kristine Grigsby, who was my on-the-fly editor and sounding board.

Glenn Bautista, you saved me a couple times, not sure what Id do without you.

And thanks to Helen Zimmermann, our agent, who from the moment I pitched her this book idea never let me go.

F ROM P EPPER S CHWARTZ

I want to thank Fred Kaseburg and my children, Cooper and Ryder, for their support.

F ROM J AMES W ITTE

Thanks to Connie, Jonny, Victoria, Aaron, Heidi. Our love for each other is a very good normal.

A ND FROM A LL OF U S

Thanks to our editor, Rick Horgan, and to our publisher, Tina Constable, for the opportunity and for making this happen.

A special thanks to Roy Pargas, codeveloper of OnQ. Without Roys able assistance we wouldnt have been able to collect the survey data that is the basis for The Normal Bar.

A big thanks to Peggy Northrup and her team at Readers Digestwere forever grateful for all of your support.

Thanks to our other media partnersHuffington Post, AOL, and AARPfrom whom we gathered more data than we ever could have imagined.

Thanks to all the people who helped ensure our success either by directly supporting us or by saying yes to working with us: Arianna Huffington, Sara Wilson, Willow Bay, Jennifer Barrett, Mary Hickey, Beth Domingo, Raimo Moysa, Keller Felt, Megan Baker, Barbara ODair, Seth Grossman, Lorna Davis, Deb Colitti, Ingrid Arna, Yang Yang, Linda Sivertsen, and Ariane de Bonvoisin.

And, finally, thanks to the tens of thousands of people worldwide who participated in our survey and shared their intimate personal stories with us. This is our gift back to you. Enjoy!

T he Normal Bar was conceived during a relationship crisis that became an opportunity for marital rebirth. My husband, Mark, and I had been together for well over a decade when we started to question whether we were as happy as we could be in our relationship. At the time we were both so busy with work, the house, and our three kids that we barely had any energy left for ourselves, much less for each other. I remember thinking, is this as good as it gets? Curious to know if this was normal, I asked some of my closest friends, who also had been married for over ten years, how they felt about their relationships. I was stunned to learn how many of them were struggling. One of my friends confided that she hadnt made love to her husband for six months. Six months! I thought, theres no way that could be good. But who was I to judge? Mark and I had our own laundry list of relationship issues, and I knew the normal that wed created for our marriage was making us both more miserable than we cared to admit. Was this the price