An Unfinished Marriage [Paperback]

Joan Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 2003

In this moving sequel to her national bestseller A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson explores the challenges of rebuilding and renewing a marriage with her trademark candor, compassion, and insight.

With A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson struck a chord in many tens of thousands of readers. Her brave decision to take a year for herself away from her marriage, her frank assessment of herself at midlife, and her openness in sharing her fears as well as her triumphs won her admirers and inspired women across the country to reconsider their options. In this new book, Anderson does for marriage what she did for women at midlife. Using the same very personal approach, she shows us her own rocky path to renewing a marriage gone stale, satisfying the demand from readers and reviewers to learn what comes next.

When Joan and her husband Robin decided to repair and renew their marriage after her eye-opening year of self-discovery, the outcome was far from certain. He had suddenly decided to retire and move to Cape Cod himself and embark on his own journey of midlife reinvention. After the initial shock of incorporating another person back into Joan’s daily life and her treasured cottage, they begin the process of "recycling"–using the original materials of their marriage to create a new partnership. Rereading the letters that she had written from Uganda during the early years of their marriage, she is reminded about the nervousness and joy with which she began their life together. Her sudden incapacitation with a broken ankle reveals an unexpected resourceful and tender side in her husband. A grimly comic and strained dinner party with three other couples reveals to both Joan and Robin some of the emotional pitfalls (and horrors) that can befall married couples.

In her year of solitude by the sea, Anderson learned that "there is no greater calling than to make a new creation out of the old self." In An Unfinished Marriage, she charts the new journey that she and her husband have begun together, seasoned by their years of marriage but newly awakened to the possibilities of their future together. A unique, tremendously moving and insightful entry into the literature of marriage, it will provide salutary shocks of recognition and fresh hope for all women and men negotiating their own marital passages.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anderson's 1999 memoir, A Year by the Sea, described her year-long break from marriage, a time of independent self-discovery as she approached middle age. In this sequel, she continues into the following year, when she and her newly retired husband, Robin, move to their cottage on Cape Cod. The two face the process of building a new partnership as Anderson readjusts to living with another person and Robin comes to terms with his nonworking status. Anderson looks back on their early married life and shares her apprehensions about Robin's idleness. A trip to the dump reminds her that she and Robin can take the good elements of their early years and recycle them into this new phase of marriage. When she breaks her ankle, she finds a tenderness in her husband that surprises her. A bittersweet Christmas visit from a son and daughter-in-law is especially touching, as she rejoices in the news of their expected first child yet frankly explores her sadness in watching her son's role as husband take precedence over his role as son. Anderson's love of the Cape Cod landscape is an important element of her book, notably in the final chapters describing the couple's two-week stay in an isolated dune shack, sans running water and electricity. Fans of her earlier work will find the same thoughtful reflection and candor in this closeup of a marriage at midlife.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Following up on her discoveries during A Year by the Sea, this best-selling author explains how she repaired her marriage.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 231 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908716
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908719
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joan Anderson is a journalist and the bestselling author of A Year by the
Sea, An Unfinished Marriage, A Walk on the Beach, and A Weekend to Change
Your Life. She lives with her husband on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and
conducts weekend workshops for women around the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I preferred her first book, but this is a good follow up, June 17, 2002

By 

happy reader "dbw23pcw" (Naperville, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Unfinished Marriage (Hardcover)

I found Joan Anderson's first book, A Year by the Sea to be a life altering book for me. This follow up doesn't quite live up to the original but it is interesting to see where the first book left off and what happened the year after the year by the sea. I recently met Joan Anderson at one of her wonderful weekend by the sea retreats and she told us that she had been asked why she and her husband got back together after a year apart, and she said it is because he is my best friend. As simple as that. This book does show the love and tenderness that Joan and Robin have for each other especially after Joan breaks her ankle and has to completely depend on her husband for everything. After an awkward start, he becomes an expert in domestic duties much to Joan's delight. Who knew? Given half a chance, men can take care of a household as well as a woman if he is willing to try. And their two weeks at the dune cottage while their house was being renovated was a kind of a whimsical adventure. With no electricity, running water or telephones what can you possible have to do for two whole weeks? Well, they managed to do a lot of discovery about themselves and their surroundings during that time. Everyone should have such an opportunity to get away from the rat race once in a while. I recommend the book but only after reading A Year by the Sea first if you haven't already because otherwise you won't get it.

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Unfortunate Sequel, January 17, 2003

By 

Gloria Johnson (Arlington, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Unfinished Marriage (Hardcover)

"A Year by the Sea," to which An Unfinished Marriage" is the sequel, is the memoir of a woman who peeled off the layers of her life and found again the person hidden under those layers. This is not unique in literature, nor in the lives of women, but Anderson's story is satisfying to women, most of whom are unable or unwilling to take Anderson's drastic and courageous approach to reshaping their lives. It was well-written and, deservedly, it sold well; a lot of us who read it learned from her experiences and appreciated her insights.

Unfortunately, "An Unfinished Marriage" is a bogus effort to take advantage of that success, with little basis. "Write a sequel, Joan. A lot of readers will buy the book, thinking that you really have something else to say."

Most of this book--and most of the so-called work on "finishing" or rescuing the marriage--takes place in Joan's head, not between Joan and Robin. Robin, newly retired, is undeveloped in the book, presented as though he has little or no role in the marriage and little or no interest in taking any steps to preserve it. He is trying to redefine himself as a retired person, a position for which Anderson has little sympathy. Having spent the preceding year re-evaluating and changing her life, she has not much interest in his attempt to do the same in the year she has apparently designated for re-evaluating and changing their marriage. This is a man who has obviously failed to get with the program.

Joan seems to feel that the future of the marriage is entirely in her hands and that somehow the marriage will move forward if she is very introspective and contrives everything possible into a series of lame metaphors that supposedly represent the marriage. A trip to the dump makes her realize that the marriage can be recycled like an aluminum can or a plastic bucket? Oh, please. Robin and Joan undertake the renovation of the beach house that has now become their year-round home and that is a metaphor for the remodeling of the marriage. Yes indeed, a recycled metaphor.(Which came first, the renovation or the metaphor?)

The dialogue in this book is stilted, way too heavy for normal conversation, fraught with meaning. In fact, everything in the book is fraught with meaning, too significant. If this reflects the their daily life during the period reported in the book, no wonder reassembling the marriage was so difficult. It seems that every action, every conversation, every event must be analyzed, reshaped and forced into significance for the sake of the book.

And therein lies the major problem with this book: It was forced into being. There is no book in this book.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MASTERPIECE FROM START TO FINISH!, March 22, 2002

By 

Sandra D. Peters "Seagull Books" (Prince Edward Island, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Unfinished Marriage (Hardcover)

Readers who read Anderson's first book, "A Year by the Sea" will find this a beautiful sequel and equally as compelling as her first book. After seeing Anderson on the Oprah show, I was as impressed with the author as I was with her book. In this book, Anderson and her husband reunite after a year apart. The reunion was not without its ups and downs as would be expected after the author's year sabbatical. According to Anderson, she and her husband had to make several changes to avoid making the same pitfalls and mistakes that had caused the couple to drift with a different tide. I particularly enjoyed "their trip to the dump", a learning experience that proved, like many objects we cast away, marriages can also be recycled.

Anderson is a down-to-Earth woman who spent considerable time searching for her true self - much of which had been lost in her marriage. In discovering what made her tick, she also discovered a part of her marriage that was worth saving. As a counsellor, I hear so many stories of marriages that lose their spark. Not all marriages can be salvaged or "recycled" and some should not be; however, love is our most powerful emotion - it can overcome all obstacles if we are willing to make the commitment and changes to resolve the issues. Through the pages of this wonderfully inspiring book, many readers, particularly women, will be able to relate to Anderson's tale and perhaps see a little of themselves. The book reminds me of the saying, "If you love something set it free; if it comes back, it is yours; if it does not, it never was."

Hats off to Joan Anderson for having the courage and wisdom to take a journey into self-discovery with all the risks involved and the determination to write a book which contains a valuable lesson for women everywhere. The only constant in life is change. If we are not able to go with the changes life throws our way and are not willing to take risks, we will never reach our goals. Hopefully, she and her husband will have many beautiful and enriching years together, and ebb and flow with the same tide.