Hi, we’re Jill and Brook… After four years together (and one year apart), we faced a common question: How does a couple know if they should marry? We decided to build a 40-activity obstacle course to simulate wedlock and help us make the big decision. “The Marriage Test” is the story of how that went…

    Credit: Samantha Okazaki
    Book News

    6 Ways to Steal Our Date Ideas Without Buying the Book

    We’ve been practicing clickbait headlines. How’d we do? Like any good clickbait, this post will sort of deliver on its promise: The Marriage Test has got a bunch of media coverage in the last few days and many of the stories have offered date descriptions–we won’t mention which outlet actually asked to publish all 40 dates on their website but… well, it was the Today Show....

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    Jason and Nicole’s home search leads to bigger questions
    Their Turn

    Jason and Nicole’s home search leads to bigger questions

    Date #36 – House Hunting . . . After 18 months of dating we want to move in together but finding a home we both love looks tricky JASON: Nicole and I had been friends for a number of years before we started dating a year and a half ago, meaning a lot of stuff that might come up in the house hunting date we already knew...

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    Invasion of Baby Jack!
    Video

    Invasion of Baby Jack!

    BROOK: Our friends gave us their baby, nine-month old Jack, for 24 hours in our care. JILL: They were more than willing to get rid of their son for 24 hours.

    Brook & Jill: 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. By the time we raised a family and combined bank accounts, it would be too late to turn back.
    So with the help of friends and family, we built “The Marriage Test” to simulate married life before leaping down the aisle. For a month, we traded credit cards, for a weekend we borrowed a baby. Our sex life was strained by recreating TV love scenes, trust was tested at an embarrassing lunch with our exes. Our 40 dates started with a night of speed dating and ended with 24 hours handcuffed together.
    “The Marriage Test” recounts the year we spent on an awkward, emotional, life-changing adventure. We agreed at the start: If the dates went well we’d spend our lives together; if not, we were through.

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