The Marriage Test

Book excerpt: A crash course in commitment: one couple and forty dates that could make or break their marriage before the wedding. Picking a partner is life’s most important decision, but how are we supposed to make it? Being in love is a good start, but the issues that ultimately wreck marriages—money and monogamy, career and kids—are hard to gauge until you’re actually hitched. So after a few years of dating, Jill Andres and Brook Silva-Braga built The Marriage Test to confirm their compatibility before saying “I do.” Forty revealing challenges simulate the issues that could tank or strengthen their union. For a month, they swap credit cards, for a weekend they borrow a baby. An embarrassing lunch with their exes tests their trust issues. Sexual gymnastics are required to recreate TV love scenes. From a night of speed dating to 24 hours handcuffed together, the crazy, awkward, emotional trials fling them headfirst into assorted marital minefields. Is their love strong enough to weather real life? Only forty dates will tell...