10 Things Books Taught Me About Relationships

By Julie Buntin

Some relationship problems are too big to be solved by the holy trifecta of girlfriend powwows, unlimited ice cream, and calling Mom. When I have a truly apocalyptic relationship meltdown, I remember that there's much wisdom to be found in books.

1. If he's kissing you in private but he won't kiss you in public, dump his butt.

Have you ever had the experience of a guy describing - over the phone, online, in his bedroom after hustling you past his roommates and before taking off all your clothes - something uber-personal, like how he felt growing up without a mom/dad/siblings? Then two days later, you bump into him at a party and he barely looks at you? He's not just shy. He's a jerk, or he has a girlfriend. Your literary proof? Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld's highly relatable novel about a teenage girl's inner life. Lee Fiora continues to hook up with sexy, popular Cross (a lacrosse player, of course), who refuses to acknowledge her existence outside of their trysts. Deep down Lee knows that she deserves more from him. But she keeps going back for more. I too made this mistake - Yes you, T.S, freshman year of high school - but it was reading books like Prep that helped me realize I deserved someone who wanted to show me off, not keep me a secret.

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2. There's no such thing as out of your league.

What do Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, and A Wrinkle in Time have in common, aside from the fact that they're all incredibly good books starring fearless heroines that you should read (or reread) pronto? Their leading ladies are all involved in love affairs with dreamy guys they thought, mistakenly, that they weren't pretty enough for. Redheaded Anne can't believe Gilbert notices her, but he's stunned she returns his affections. Meg's bookish and awkward and Calvin O'Keefe still travels to space and beyond to have the privilege of calling her his. And Jane? Sweet, pale, angry Jane? Mr. Rochester can't believe his luck - and rightly so. The truth is, you're more beautiful than you think.

3. Pay attention to the supporting characters.

The cubical partner who cracks you up, the male friend you call when you're lost, the handsome neighbor, the coffee guy who remembers your order. If you learn anything from David Copperfield, let it be this: Do not overlook the love of your life! Agnes was there ALL ALONG, but David was so enraptured by adorable Dora that it took him years to realize that Agnes was his soul mate. So often the relationships that change our lives, in love and friendship, are with people we never expected - not the ones we pine after for years. Another example? Never Let Me Go. In Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Tommy and Ruth are together throughout their childhood and into adolescence. It takes years for Tommy to realize that Kathy, the narrator and his lifelong friend, is the person he truly loves.

4. The "perfect" person might not be perfect for you.

When Frank Wheeler meets April, he realizes he's in the presence of "an exceptionally first-rate girl." Miraculously, or so it seems to Frank, he has the good fortune (which quickly morphs into misfortune) of impregnating and wheedling her into marriage. Frank is so enamored by April's beauty and class that he overlooks all the ways they're incompatible. If you're anything like me, you've had the experience of trying to convince yourself that something's working when neither party is happy. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates's masterpiece of American literature, is the chilling story of what happens when the life you chose is also the prison that destroys you.

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5. If you make your relationship the only thing in your life, you give up a lot of power.

OK, that lesson is actually from my mom, who started telling me that over and over around my 11th birthday. What she meant was, the person who is least obsessed with wooing the other calls the shots in a relationship. The best way to make sure you're not tunnel-visioning your way into relationship doom? Never let it become the only thing you care about. If Lily Bart, the protagonist of House of Mirth, had ever had a daughter, no doubt she would have offered the same advice. All Lily has is her beauty - and she's obsessed with parlaying her loveliness into a lucrative marriage that will save her from a life of debt and disgrace. But the oppressive rules of New York's patriarchal society render her powerless. Her problems are largely a symptom of novel's time period, but her example is also a reminder that nothing is less attractive than caring about marriage more than yourself. In short, never let anyone hold all the cards.

6. If you truly love someone, you'll be willing to play the long game.

Amity Gaige's O My Darling is a sort-of ghost story that's also an ode to the beautiful, impossible mess that is marriage. Clark and Charlotte Adair are madly in love - except when they're at each other's throats, or living in increasingly different worlds. Still, they always find their way back to each other. Love is long -and one of the ways you know you're really in it is if you want to be in it, well, forever. Chang-Rae Lee's gorgeous dystopian novel, On Such a Full Sea, offers a similar argument about love's durability. His teenage protagonist, Fan, sets off on a dangerous journey across an unknown world in search of her missing boyfriend, Reg - and never once does she flag. Finally, my favorite true-life literary couple: Vera and Vladimir Nabokov. Open any book by Nabokov - I promise you he dedicated it to his beloved wife.

7. Do not get married unless you are ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU HAVE FOUND THE RIGHT PERSON, because divorce is horrible.

There are so many novels about the wretchedness of bad marriages - Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, to name two that end in suicide; Franzen's Freedom and The Corrections; the bold memoirs Lit, by Mary Karr, and Wild, by Cheryl Strayed; and anything from Updike or Bellow's imagination promises at least a whiff of marital decay and its impending litigation. In many of these stories, the characters ignored early doubts about their future spouse. One of my favorite takes on the complexity and sadness of an ill-suited couple that makes it down the altar and eventually to the courtroom is Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage. The book is a remarkable look at early, passionate love that dissolves into harried sniping and eventually cheating, indifference, divorce, and resentment.

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8. If you suspect your partner is cheating, well, he might be cheating.

Every fragment of Jenny Offill's novel Dept. of Speculation will work its way under your skin like a splinter. The story follows the mind of a writer - a woman, a mother, a wife - as her marriage and her life fall apart and then agonizingly, miraculously come back together again. By the time she writes, "And then there is the night that he misses putting their daughter to bed…" your heart's been sinking for pages. You know as well as she does what all this has been adding up to.

9. You really can love again.

What do you do if you did marry, and it was a mistake, and now you're starting from scratch with a heart as loveless and ugly as a dehydrated prune? Slowly, carefully, almost without noticing it, you begin to love again. Middlemarch's Dorothea did it, and so did Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, and so did Kitty in Anna Karenina. Heartbreak isn't forever. Think of Liz Gilbert in Eat, Pray Love! Or Bridget Jones! The best part about the second time around? You have tons more wisdom to bring to the table in your new relationship.

10. Good sex, bad sex, good relationships, bad relationships - none of them trump friendship.

I know, it's the most enduring cliche pretty much ever, but that's mostly because it's true, and because friendship, in all its beautiful particulars, never feels cliche when you're living it - and when it's written well. I will include one caveat here - if you've found the kind of love that exists in No. 6 on this list and it sends you around the world and back, your girlfriends should respect that. But if you haven't, you still have plenty of true love in your life, and it's with your friends. Some examples? Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be (Heti beats the brains out of Israel, but he gets about .04 percent of the page time compared with BFF Margaux), Emily Gould's forthcoming Friendship, and Elena Ferrante's absolutely perfect novel My Brilliant Friend. Don't make the common mistake of letting your relationships distract you from your friendships.

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