2. According to Chapter 14, parents suffer from the one of the following in a similar fashion to children.
(a) Fear of abandonment.
(b) Oedipus complex.
(c) Insecurity about themselves.
(d) Separation anxiety.

3. Men pursue ______________; women yearn for _______________.
(a) Excitement; safety.
(b) Deep relationships; one night stands.
(c) Autonomy; intimacy.
(d) Sex; cuddling.

4. Friends and intimate partners are considered what?
(a) The true test of a good marriage.
(b) One and the same.
(c) Two different types of relationships.
(d) A rare phenomenon found only in humans.

5. According to Chapter 20, Viorst is living on what to beat her middle-aged spread?
(a) Lean Cuisine.
(b) Weight Watchers.
(c) Grapefruit.
(d) NutriSystem.

Short Answer Questions

1. What famous author's memoir entitled Speak, Memory does Viorst reference at the end of Chapter 14?

2. What does this line from a poem by Longfellow tell us about old age? "Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."

3. Who else, besides mothers, links separation and danger?

4. Who was the psychologist who said that marriage requires "a wise balancing of love and hate"?

5. What was the name of the married woman with four children, mentioned in Chapter 12, who formed a non-sexual friendship with another man?

Short Essay Questions

1. Viorst describes a sort of "opposites attract" type marriage relationship where each party meets a neurotic need of the other party. What did she call this type of arrangement?

2. How does baggage from childhood put pressure on a marriage?

3. What is described as the ultimate separation in Chapter 18?

4. Other than a parent, what other things impact who a child becomes?

5. What does it mean if a child and mother aren't a good fit?

6. What is the fundamental tension in all man-woman marriages?

7. What are some of the different types of loss and mourning discussed in Chapter 16? Do we experience them all in the same way?

8. Viorst suggests two necessary losses in Chapter 14. Name one of them.

9. Name two of the stages of mourning that Viorst describes in Chapter 16.

10. What does Freud say about religious thoughts of an afterlife?

(see the answer keys)

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