Married to Distraction
Restoring Intimacy and Strengthening Your Marriage in an Age of Interruption

Are you more distant from your spouse than you’d like to be? Do you sometimes get into big struggles over what amount to mere administrative details? Do you or your spouse waste time mindlessly viewing email or surfing the Web? Welcome to the club!

Modern marriage is busy, distracted, and overloaded to extremes, with ever-increasing lists of things to do, superficial electronic connections, and interrupted moments. Now Dr. Edward Hallowell teams up with his wife, Sue, to explain the subtle but dangerous toll today’s overstretched lifestyle takes on our most intimate relationship. The good news is that there are straightforward and effective ways to maneuver your marriage out of the destructive roadblocks created by the avalanche of busy living. Just thirty minutes of effort a day for thirty days can restore and repair communication and connection, resurrect long-buried happiness and romance, and strengthen—even save—a marriage.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Modern Issues in Intimacy
1. The Anatomy of Modern Love
2. Your Attention...Please?
3. Interrupted...Everything
4. Making Time to Connect
5. Distracters and Organizers
6. Seemingly Selfish
7. The Big Struggle

Part 2: Resolving the Problems of Distraction
8. Struggle Stoppers
9. Download Overload
10. Eliminate Toxic Worry
11. When Your Spouse Has True ADD
12. When Your Spouse Feels Like Your Child
13. The New World of Affairs
14. Time for Sex
15. Just How Neat Must a Person Be
16. Managing Anger and Frustration

Part 3: Promoting Passionate Connection
17. Conation: An Unfamiliar Key to Empathy
18. Special-ize
19. Building Romance
20. The Unexpected Gift
21. Finding Hope
22. What Makes it Worthwhile
23. Ten Reasons Not to Get Divorced:
       Ten Reasons To Get Divorced: and
       Forty Ways to Make Your Marriage Great

Part 4: Thirty Minutes, Thirty Days:
             A Workbook for Modern Marriage

Acknowledgements
Notes

Reviews
“With its wise and compassionate counsel and great ideas for bridging the “disconnect” all too often a part of married life these days, this is a unique, engaging, and profoundly helpful book. It can save a marriage or simply help people in happy marriages get closer and feel more fulfilled.”—Suzy Welch, New York Times bestselling author of 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea

“This timely book could save your marriage. With wit and humor, Ned and Sue Hallowell astutely call attention to the epidemic distraction plaguing our relationships today. They gently guide us toward intimate connection—through the art of paying attention. Spare some time to focus on their wisdom, and discover anew the depth of love.” —Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age

“It is remarkable that a couple so well versed in the woes of their patients’ marriages has the capacity for the kind of optimism and clear-sighted wisdom that readers will find in these pages. The Hallowells (he teaches at Harvard Medical School and heads the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health; she is a couples’ therapist) examine the new and hard-to-resist stresses placed on the modern-day marriage with a compassionate focus on forgiveness and self-reflection. Those in search of practical, concrete advice for creating and saving healthy marriages will find what they need.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Reviews from Readers Like You
I found this book to be extremely insightful, practical, and hopeful. Communicating in the 21st century is often fast, easy and constant...but not always meaningful or worthwhile. This book offers guidance for those who want to nurture and enjoy a special relationship while managing the demands of living in a fast-paced, high-tech world.
Married to Distraction is a very thought-provoking book and comes at a time when many people need to assess how to balance work and play. - E. Dionne (Review from Amazon)

Married to distraction is a great guide for navigating relationships in the age of distracting and time consuming technology. It includes a lot of great strategies for improving your relationship-- all packed into efficient lists and well organized chapters. I would highly recommend it for busy, working professionals or anyone who wants to jump start their marriage or relationship. Dr. Hallowell is an ADHD expert which makes this book particularly salient for people struggling with the disorder (they even throw in a chapter devoted to this)! I highly recommend this book. Its a quick, entertaining, and encouraging read! - A. Phillip (Review from Amazon)

A very interesting read on modern life and how distraction affects our primary relationships. Includes a 30-day plan for re-connecting with your partner and maintaining that intimacy. - Susan E. Walters (Review from Amazon)